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The  Crow's- Nest 


The   Crow's-Nest 


By 
Mrs.    Everard   Cotes 

{Sara  Jeannette  Duncan) 

Author  of  **An  American  Girl  in  London" 
**A  Social  Departure,"   etc. 


t 


New   York 

Dodd,  Mead  and  Company 

1901 


Copyright,    1901,    by 
DoDD,  Mead  and  Company 


ITNIVERSITY  PRKSS    •    JOHN    WILSON 
AND  SON      •       CAMBRIDGK,   U.  S.  A. 


The  CRows-NEsr 


Chapter  I 

THERE  is  an  attraction  about 
carpets  and  curtains,  chairs  and 
sofas,  and  the  mantelpiece  which 
is  hard  to  explain,  and  harder  to 
resist.  I  feel  it  in  all  its  insidious  power 
this  morning  as  I  am  bidding  them  fare- 
well for  a  considerable  time;  I  would  not 
have  believed  that  a  venerable  Axminster 
and  an  arm-chair  on  three  casters  could 
absorb  and  hold  so  much  affection ;  verily 
I  think,  standing  in  the  door,  it  was  these 
things  that  made  Lot's  wife  turn  her  un- 
lucky head.  Dear  me,  how  they  enter  in, 
how  they  grow  to  be  part  of  us,  these  ob- 
jects of  ordinary  use  and  comfort  that  we 
place  within  the  four  walls  of  the  little 
shelters  we  build  for  ourselves  on  the 
fickle  round  o*  the  world !  I  have  gone 
back,  I  have  sat  down,  I  will  not  be  de- 
prived of  them ;  they  are  necessary  to  the 


2135389 


The  Crow's-Nest 


courage  with  which  every  one  must  face  life. 
I  will  consider  nothing  without  a  cushion, 
on  the  hither  side  of  the  window,  braced  by- 
dear  familiar  book-shelves,  and  the  fender. 
And  Tiglath-Pileser  has  come,  and  has 
quoted  certain  documents,  and  has  used 
gentle  propulsive  force,  and  behold,  be- 
cause I  am  a  person  whose  contumacy  can- 
not endure,  the  door  is  shut,  and  I  am  on 
the  outside  disconsolate. 

I  would  not  have  more  sympathy  than 
I  can  afterwards  sustain ;  I  am  only  ban- 
ished to  the  garden.  But  the  banishment 
is  so  definite,  so  permanent !  Its  terms 
are  plain  to  my  unwilling  glance,  a  long 
cane  deck  chair  anchored  under  a  tree. 
Overhead  the  sky,  on  the  four  sides  the 
sky,  without  a  pattern,  full  of  wind  and 
nothing.  Abroad  the  landscape,  consist- 
ing entirely  of  large  mountains ;  about,  the 
garden.  I  never  regarded  a  garden  with 
more  disfavour.  Here  I  am  to  remain  — 
but  to  remain!  The  word  expands,  you 
will  find,  as  you  look  into  it.  Man,  and 
especially  woman,  is  a  restless  being,  made 


The  Crow's-Nest 


to  live  in  houses  roaming  from  room  to 
room,  and  always  staying  for  the  shortest 
time  moreover,  if  you  notice,  in  the  one 
which  is  called  the  garden.  The  subtle  and 
gratifying  law  of  arrangement  that  makes 
the  drawing-room  the  only  proper  place  for 
afternoon  tea  operates  all  through.  The 
convenience  of  one  apartment,  the  quiet  of 
another,  the  decoration  of  another  regularly 
appeal  in  turn,  and  there  is  always  one's 
beloved  bed,  for  retirement  when  the  world 
is  too  much  with  one.  All  this  I  am  com- 
pelled to  resign  for  a  single  fixed  fact  and 
condition,  a  cane  chair  set  in  the  great 
monotony  of  out-of-doors.  My  eye,  which 
is  a  captious  organ,  is  to  find  its  entertain- 
ment all  day  long  in  bushes  —  and  grass. 
All  day  long.  Except  for  meals  it  is  abso- 
lutely laid  down  that  I  am  not  to  "  come 
in."  They  have  not  locked  the  doors,  that 
might  have  been  negotiated,  they  have  gone 
and  put  me  on  my  honour.  From  morn- 
ing until  night  I  am  to  sit  for  several 
months  and  breathe,  with  the  grass  and  the 
bushes,    the    beautiful    pure   fresh    air.       I 


The  Crow's-Nest 


don't  know  why  they  have  not  asked  me 
to  take  root  and  be  done  with  it.  In  vain 
I  have  represented  that  microbes  will  agree 
with  them  no  better  than  with  me ;  it  seems 
the  common  or  house  microbe  is  one  of  the 
things  that  I  particularly  must  n't  have. 
Some  people  are  compelled  to  deny  them- 
selves oysters,  others  strawberries  or  arti- 
chokes ;  my  fate  is  not  harder  than  another's. 
Yet  it  tastes  of  bitterness  to  sit  out  here  in  an 
April  wind  twenty  paces  from  a  door  behind 
which  they  are  enjoying,  in  customary  warmth 
and  comfort,  all  the  microbes  there  are. 

I  have  consented  to  this.  I  have  been 
wrought  upon  certainly,  but  I  have  con- 
sented. For  all  that,  it  is  not  so  simple  as 
it  looks.  It  is  my  occupation  to  write  out 
with  care  and  patience  the  trifles  the  world 
shows  me,  revolving  as  it  does  upon  its  axis 
before  every  intelligent  eye ;  and  I  cannot 
be  divorced  from  all  that  is  upholstered  and 
from  my  dear  occupation  by  the  same  de- 
cree. And  how,  I  ask  you,  how  observe 
life  from  a  cane  chair  under  a  tree  in  a  gar- 
den 1     There  is  the  beautiful  pure  fresh  air 


The  Crow's-Nest 


certainly,  and  there  are  the  things  coming 
up.  But  what,  tell  me,  can  you  extract 
from  air  beside  water ;  and  though  a  purely 
vegetable  romance  would  be  a  novelty, 
could  I  get  it  published  ?  Tiglath-Pileser 
has  contributed  to  my  difficulty  a  book  of 
reference,  a  volume  upon  the  coleoptera  of 
the  neighbourhood,  and  I  am  to  take  care 
of  it.  I  am  taking  the  greatest  care  of  it, 
but  I  do  not  like  to  hand  it  back  to  him 
with  the  sentiments  I  feel  in  case  one  fine 
day  I  should  be  reduced  to  coleoptera  and 
thankful  to  get  them. 

Nevertheless  I  have  no  choice,  I  cannot 
go  forth  in  the  world's  ways  and  see  what 
people  are  doing  there,  I  must  just  sit  under 
my  tree  and  think  and  consider  upon  the 
current  facts  of  a  garden,  the  bursting  buds 
I  suppose  and  the  following  flowers,  the 
people  who  happen  that  way  and  the  ideas 
the  wind  brings ;  the  changes  of  the  seasons 
—  there  's  fashion  after  all  in  that  —  the 
behaviour  of  the  ants  and  earwigs ;  oh,  I 
am  encouraged,  in  the  end  it  will  be  a  novel 
of  manners ! 


The  Crow's-Nest 


Besides,  there  ought  to  be  certain  virtues, 
if  one  could  find  them,  m  plein  air,  for  scrib- 
bling as  well  as  for  painting.  One's  head 
always  feels  particularly  empty  in  a  garden, 
but  that  is  no  reason  why  one  should  not 
see  what  is  going  on  there,  and  if  one's  im- 
pressions are  a  trifle  incoherent  —  the  wind 
does  blow  the  leaves  about  —  they  will  be 
on  that  account  all  the  more  impressionistic. 

Yet  it  is  not  so  simple  as  it  looks.  In 
such  a  project  everything  depends,  it  will  be 
admitted,  upon  the  garden ;  it  must  be  a 
tolerably  familiar,  at  least  a  conceivable  spot. 
The  garden  of  Paradise,  for  instance,  who 
would  choose  it  as  a  point  de  repaire  from 
which  to  observe  the  breed  of  Adam  at  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  ?  One 
would  be  interrupted  everywhere  by  the 
necessity  of  describing  the  flora  and  fauna; 
it  would  be  like  writing  a  botany  book  with 
interpolations  which  would  necessarily  seem 
profane ;  and  the  whole  thing  would  be 
rejected  in  the  end  because  it  was  not  a 
scientific  treatise  upon  the  origin  of  apples. 
Certainly,  if  one  might  select  one's  plot,  the 


The  Crow's-Nest  7 

first  consideration  should  be  the  geographi- 
cal, and  I  am  depressed  to  think  that  my 
garden  is  only  less  remote  than  Eve's.  It 
is  not  an  English  garden  —  ah,  the  thought  1 
—  nor  a  French  one  where  they  count  the 
seeds  and  the  windfalls,  nor  an  Italian  one 
sunning  down  past  its  statues  to  the  blue 
Adriatic,  nor  even  a  garden  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Poughkeepsie  where  they  grow 
pumpkins.  Elizabeth  in  her  German  gar- 
den was  three  thousand  miles  nearer  to 
everybody  than  my  cane  chair  is  at  this 
moment.  How  can  I  possibly  expect 
people  to  come  three  thousand  miles  just 
to  sit  and  talk  under  my  pencil  cedar  ?  So 
"long"  an  invitation  requires  such  confi- 
dence, such  assurance  ! 

Who  indeed  should  care  to  hear  about 
every  day  as  it  goes  on  under  a  conifer  in 
a  garden,  when  that  garden  —  let  me  keep 
it  back  no  longer  —  is  a  mere  patch  on  a 
mountain  top  of  the  Himalayas  ?  Not  even 
India  down  below  there,  grilling  in  the  sun 
which  is  not  quite  warm  enough  here  —  that 
would  be  easy  with  snakes  and  palm-trees 


8  The  Crow's-Nest 

and  mangoes  and  chutneys  all  growing 
round,  ready  and  familiar ;  but  Simla,  what 
is  Simla?  An  artificial  little  community 
which  has  climbed  eight  thousand  feet  out 
of  the  world  to  be  cool.  Who  ever  leaves 
Charing  Cross  for  Simla?  Who  among  the 
world's  multitudes  ever  casts  an  eye  across 
the  Rajputana  deserts  to  Simla  ?  Does 
Thomas  Cook  know  where  Simla  is  ?  No  ; 
Simla  is  a  geographical  expression,  to  be 
verified  upon  the  map  and  never  to  be 
thought  of  again,  and  a  garden  in  Simla  is 
a  vague  and  formless  fancy,  a  possibility,  no 
more. 

Yet  people  have  to  live  there,  I  have  to 
live  there ;  and  certainly  for  the  next  few 
months  I  have  to  make  the  best  of  it  from 
the  outside.  If  you  ask  yourself  what  you 
really  think  of  a  garden  you  will  find  that 
you  consider  it  a  charming  place  to  go  out 
into.  So  much  I  gladly  admit  if  you  add 
the  retreat  and  background  of  the  house. 
The  house  is  such  an  individual ;  such  a 
friend !  Even  in  Simla  the  house  offers 
corners   where   may   lurk   the   imagination. 


The  Crow's-Nest  9 

nails  on  which  to  hang  a  rag  of  fancy  ;  but 
in  this  windy  patch  under  the  sky  surrounded 
by  Himalayas,  one  Himalaya  behind  another 
indefinitely,  who  could  find  two  ideas  to  rub 
together  ? 

Also  my  cane  chair  is  becoming  most 
pitiably  weary  ;  it  aches  in  every  limb.  The 
sun  was  poor  and  pale  enough  ;  now  it  has 
gone  altogether,  a  greyness  has  blown  out 
of  Thibet,  my  fingers  are  almost  too  numb 
to  say  how  cold  it  is.  The  air  is  full  of  an 
apprehension  of  rain  —  if  it  rains  do  you 
suppose  I  am  to  come  in?  Indeed  no,  I 
am  to  have  an  umbrella.  Uncomforted, 
uncomfortable  fate  !  I  wish  it  would  rain ; 
I  could  then  pity  myself  so  profoundly,  so 
abjectly,  I  would  lie  heroic,  still  and  stoic ; 
and  at  the  appointed  time  I  would  take  my 
soaking,  patient  person  into  the  house  with 
a  trail  of  drops,  pursued  by  Thisbe  with 
hot-water  bottles,  which  I  would  reject,  to 
her  greater  compassion  and  more  contrition. 
And  in  the  morning  it  would  be  a  queer 
thing  if  I  could  n't  produce  rheumatism 
somewhere.     Short  of  rain,  however,  it  will 


lo         The  Crow*s-Nest 

be  impossible  to  give  a  correct  and  adequate 
impression  of  the  bald  inhospitality  of  out- 
of-doors.  They  will  think  I  want  to  be 
pitied  and  admired,  and  Thisbe  will  say, 
"But  didn't  you  really  enjoy  it — just  a 
little  ?  " 

Walls  are  necessary  to  human  happiness 
—  that  I  can  asseverate.  Tiglath-Pileser,  in 
bringing  me  to  this  miserable  point,  argued 
that  I  should  experience  the  joys  of  primi- 
tive man  when  he  took  all  nature  for  his 
living-room ;  subtle,  long-lost  sensations 
would  arise  in  me,  he  said,  of  such  a  per- 
suasive character  that  in  the  end  I  should 
have  to  combat  the  temptation  to  take  en- 
tirely to  the  woods.  I  expect  nothing  of 
the  kind.  My  original  nomad  is  too  far 
away,  I  cannot  sympathize  with  him  in  his 
embryotic  preferences  across  so  many  wisest 
centuries.  Moreover,  if  the  poor  barbarian 
had  an  intelligent  idea  it  was  to  get  under 
shelter,  and  that  is  the  only  one,  doubtless, 
for  which  we  have  to  thank  him. 

The  windows  are  blank ;  they  think  it 
kindest,  I  suppose,  not  to  appear  to  find 


The  Crow's-Nest  1 1 

entertainment  in  my  situation.  It  is  cer- 
tainly wisest ;  if  Thisbe  showed  but  the  tip 
of  her  pretty  nose  I  should  throw  it  up. 
The  windows  are  blank,  the  door  is  shut, 
but  hold  —  there  is  smoke  coming  out  of 
the  drawing-room  chimney !  Thisbe  has 
lighted  unto  herself  a  fire  and  is  now  drawn 
up  around  it  awaiting  the  tea-things.  The 
house  as  an  ordinary  substantive  is  hard 
enough  to  resist,  but  the-house-with-a-fire ! 
No,  I  cannot.  Besides  it  is  already  half- 
past  four  and  I  was  to  come  in  at  five  to  tea. 
I  will  obey  the  spirit  and  scorn  the  letter  of 
the  law  —  I  will  go  in  now. 


Chapter    II 

A  ROAD  winds  round  the  hill 
above  our  heads ;  another  winds 
round  the  hill  below  our  feet ; 
between  is  a  shelf  jutting  out. 
The  principal  object  on  the  shelf  is  the 
house,  but  it  also  supports  the  pencil  cedar, 
and  the  garden  sits  on  it,  and  at  the  back 
the  servants'  quarters  and  stables  just  don't 
slip  off;  so  that  when  Tiglath-Pileser  walks 
about  it  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  it 
looks  a  little  crowded.  The  land  between 
the  upper  road  and  the  shelf,  and  the  land 
between  the  shelf  and  the  lower  road  is 
equally  ours,  but  it  is  placed  at  such  an 
abrupt  and  uncompromising  angle  that  we 
do  not  know  any  way  of  taking  possession 
of  it.  By  surface  measurement  we  are 
doubtless  large  proprietors,  but  as  the  crow 
flies  we  are  distinctly  over-taxed.  This 
slanting  hill-side  is  called  the  khud ;  there 


The  Crow's-Nest         13 

is  no  real  property  in  a  khud.  One  always 
thinks  of  town  lots  as  flat  and  running  from 
the  front  street  to  the  back,  with  suitable 
exposure  for  the  washing.  It  just  depends. 
This  one  stands  on  end,  you  could  easily 
send  a  stone  rolling  from  the  front  street 
into  the  back,  if  you  knew  which  was 
which  ;  and  there  would  be  rather  too  much 
exposure  for  the  washing.  If  you  like  you 
can  lean  up  against  the  khud,  but  that  is  the 
only  way  of  asserting  your  title-deed,  and 
few  people  consider  it  worth  doing.  I  may 
say  that  as  soon  as  you  tilt  your  property 
out  of  the  horizontal  you  lose  control  over 
it.  Things  come  up  on  it  precisely  as  they 
like,  in  tufts,  in  suckers  and  in  every  vulgar 
manner,  secure  and  defiant  it  rises  above 
your  head.  Tiglath-Pileser  and  I  have 
sought  diligently,  with  ladders,  for  some  way 
of  bringing  our  khud  into  subjection,  but  in 
vain.  As  he  says  we  might  paper  it,  but  as  I 
say  there  are  some  things  which  persons  who 
derive  their  income  from  current  literature 
simply  can  not  afford.  So  we  are  content 
perforce  to  look  at  it  and  "  call  it  ours,"  as 


14  The  Crow's-Nest 

children  are  sometimes  allowed  by  their 
elders  to  do.  The  khud  is  God's  property 
but  we  call  it  ours.  Trees  grow  on  it  and 
it  makes  a  more  agreeable  background,  after 
all,  than  other  people's  kitchens. 

Beyond  the  shelf  the  hill-side  slopes  clear 
from  the  upper  road  to  the  lower,  a  stretch 
of  indefinite  jungle  which  flourishes,  no  man 
aiding  or  forbidding.  We  have  sometimes 
looked  at  it  vaguely  and  thought  of  potatoes, 
but  have  always  decided  that  it  was  useful 
enough  and  much  less  troublesome  as  part 
of  the  landscape.  The  other  day  the  law 
threatened  us  if  Tiglath-Pileser  did  not 
forthwith  declare  his  boundaries  in  that 
direction,  and  he  has  since  been  going  about 
with  a  measuring-chain  and  a  great  pretence 
of  accuracy  ;  but  it  is  my  private  belief  that 
neither  he  nor  his  neighbour  will  be  equal  to 
the  demand.  They  had  better  agree  quickly 
and  hatch  a  friendly  deposition  together,  and 
so  escape  whatever  penalty  the  law  awards 
for  not  knowing  where  your  premises  leave 
off.  Meanwhile  the  wild  cherry  and  the 
unkempt  rhododendron  grow  in  one  accord 


The  Crow's-Nest         i  5 

indifferent    to    these    foolish    claims.      Such 
is  ownership  in  a  khud. 

Our  domain  therefore  is  spread  out  about 
as  much  as  it  would  hang  from  a  clothes- 
line, but  the  only  part  we  really  inhabit  is 
the  shelf.  All  this  by  way  of  informing 
you  honestly  that  the  garden  in  which  you 
are  invited  to  lighten  so  many  long  hours 
for  me  is  no  great  place.  Here  and  now 
I  abjure  invention  and  idealization ;  you 
shall  have  just  what  happens,  just  what 
there  is,  and  it  won't  be  much.  Pot-luck 
—  you  can't  expect  more  from  a  garden  on 
a  shelf.  I  must  admit  that  before  I  was 
turned  out  to  grow  in  it  myself  I  thought  it 
well  enough,  but  now  I  regard  it  critically, 
like  the  other  plants.  We  might  do  better, 
all  of  us,  under  more  favourable  conditions. 
We  complain  unanimously,  for  one  thing, 
of  the  lack  of  room.  Cramped  we  are  to 
such  an  extent  that  I  often  feel  thankful 
for  the  paling  that  runs  along  the  edge  and 
keeps  us  all  in.  I  suppose  nobody  ever 
believed  that  his  lot  gave  him  proper  scope 
for  his  activities   in   this  world,  but   I    can 


1 6  The  Crow's-Nest 

testify  that  the  wisteria  which  twines  over  the 
paling  is  pushing  a  middle-aged  hibiscus  bush 
down  the  khud,  while  I,  sitting  here,  elbow 
them  both,  and  a  honeysuckle,  climbing  up 
from  below  has  to  cling  with  both  hands  to 
hold  on.  If  I  invite  a  friend  to  take  a  walk 
in  my  garden  I  must  go  in  front  declaiming 
and  he  must  come  behind  assenting;  we 
cannot  waste  space  on  mere  paths,  and  none 
of  them  are  wide  enough  for  two  people  to 
walk  abreast,  except  the  main  one  to  the 
door,  which  had  to  be  on  account  of  the 
rickshaws.  As  it  is,  pansies,  daisies  and 
other  small  objects  constantly  slip  over  the 
edge  and  hang  there  precariously  attached 
by  the  slenderest  root  of  family  affection 
for  days.  We  are  all  convinced  in  this 
garden,  that  for  expansion  one  would  not 
choose  a  shelf,  and  that  applies  in  quite  a 
ridiculous  way  to  Simla  itself,  though  per- 
haps it  is  hardly  worth  while,  out  here  in 
the  sun,  to  write  an  essay  to  explain  exactly 
how. 

I  would   not  show  myself  of  a  churlish 
mind ;  the  day  is  certainly  fine,  as  fine  a  day 


The  Crow's-Nest  17 

as  you  could  be  compelled  to  sit  out  in.  A 
week  has  passed  since  I  lent  myself  to  be  a 
spectacle  of  domestic  tyranny  and  modern 
science,  and  I  hasten  to  announce  that  al- 
though I  want  to  eat  more  and  to  go  to  bed 
earlier  I  am  not  at  all  better.  I  have  let  the 
week  go  by  without  taking  any  notice  of  it  in 
this  journal  under  the  impression  that  it  was 
not  worth  the  pains,  as  they  say  in  France. 
It  was  doubtless  a  wonderful  week  in  nature, 
but  which  of  the  fifty-two  is  not  ?  and  being 
certain  that  my  fountain  pen  would  be  any- 
thing but  a  source  of  amiability,  I  left  it  in 
the  house.  Moreover,  there  is  something 
not  quite  proper,  one  finds,  in  confiding  an 
experience  of  personal  discomfort,  undergone 
with  the  object  of  improving  one's  health, 
to  the  printed  page ;  it  is  akin  to  lending 
one's  maladies  to  an  advertiser  of  patent 
medicines,  and  tends  to  give  light  literature 
too  much  the  character  of  a  human  document. 
Also,  to  look  back  upon,  the  late  week  holds 
little  but  magnificent  resolution  and  the  sen- 
sation of  cold  feet.  All  that  need  be  said 
about  it  is  that  I  have  at  last  arrived  at  the 


1 8  The  Crow's-Nest 

end  of  it,  full  of  fortitude  and  resignation. 
I  am  not  at  all  better,  but  I  am  resigned  and 
prepared  to  go  on,  if  it  is  required  of  me, 
and  it  seems  likely  to  be.  In  fact  it  appears 
to  have  occurred  to  nobody  but  myself  that 
there  was  anything  experimental  about  this 
period.  The  whole  summer  is  to  be  the  ex- 
periment, I  am  told,  as  often  as  if  they  were 
addressing  the  meanest  intelligence,  which  is 
not  the  case. 

My  sensibilities  no  doubt  are  becoming 
slightly  blunted.  A  whole  week  without  a 
roof  over  one's  head  except  at  night  would 
naturally  have  that  tendency.  I  find  that 
I  am  no  longer  a  prey  to  the  desire  to  go 
in  and  look  at  something  in  the  last  number 
of  l^he  Studio,  and  the  more  subtly  tormented 
of  modern  novelties  fails  to  hold  my  atten- 
tion for  more  than  half-an-hour  at  a  time. 
The  spirit  in  my  feet  that  would  carry  me 
indoors  has  still  to  be  bound  down,  but  it 
has  grown  vague  and  purposeless  and  might 
lead  me  anywhere,  even  to  the  kitchen  to 
see  if  the  cook  is  keeping  his  saucepans 
clean,  the  most  detestable  responsibility  of 


The  Crow's-Nest  19 

my  life.  Now  that  I  am  a  close  prisoner 
outside  the  house,  by  the  way,  it  shall  be 
delegated  to  Thisbe.  That  is  no  more  than 
right. 

It  was  not  worse  than  I  expected,  and  it 
was  a  little  less  bad,  let  me  confess,  than  I 
described  it  to  my  family.  I  can  now  sym- 
pathize with  the  youthful  knight  of  the 
middle  ages  at  the  end  of  his  first  night's 
ghostly  vigil  in  the  sanctuary,  —  if  the  rest 
are  no  worse  than  this  they  can  be  got 
through  with.  I  am  certainly  on  better 
terms  with  nature,  as  he  was  on  better  terms 
with  the  skeleton  in  the  vault,  apprehending 
with  him  in  that  neither  of  them  was  really 
calculated  to  do  us  any  harm.  He  no  doubt 
lost  his  superstitions  as  I  am  losing  my  finer 
feelings ;  whether  one  is  sufficiently  com- 
pensated for  them  by  a  vulgar  appetite  and 
a  tendency  to  drowsiness  immediately  after 
dinner  is  a  question  I  should  like  to  discuss 
with  him. 

For  one  thing  I  am  beginning  to  make 
acquaintance  with  the  Days  and  to  know 
them  apart,  not  merely  as  sunny  days,  dull 


2  0  The  Crow's-Nest 

days,  windy  days  and  wet  days,  as  they  are 
commonly  unobserved  and  divided,  but  in 
the  full  and  abundant  personality  which 
every  one  of  the  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  offers  to  the  world  that  rolls  under  it. 
To  me  also,  a  very  short  time  ago,  the  day 
was  a  convenient  arrangement  for  making 
things  visible  outside  the  house,  accompanied 
by  agreeable  or  disagreeable  temperatures ;  a 
mere  condition  monotonously  recurrent  and 
quite  subordinated  to  engagements.  To  live 
out  here  enveloped  by  it,  dependent  on  it, 
in  a  morning-to-night  intimacy  with  it,  is  to 
know  better.  The  Day  is  a  great  elemental 
creature  left  in  charge  of  the  world  for  as 
long,  every  twenty-four  hours,  as  she  can  see 
it.  No  one  day  is  the  same  as  another; 
those  of  the  same  season  have  only  a  family 
likeness.  They  express  character  and  tem- 
perament, like  people,  and  if  you  elect  to  live 
with  them,  to  throw  yourself,  as  it  were,  upon 
their  better  nature  with  no  other  protection 
than  an  umbrella,  it  just  makes  all  the  differ- 
ence. Some  were  tender  and  sweet-tempered, 
I  remember,  some  were  thoughtful,  with  a 


The  Crow's-Nest         2  i 

touch  of  gloom,  one  was  artist  with  a  firm 
hand  and  a  splendid  palette.  And  among 
all  the  seven  I  did  not  dislike  a  single  Day, 
which  is  remarkable  when  one  thinks  of  the 
abuse  one  is  so  apt  to  let  fall,  from  the  inside 
of  a  window,  about  what  our  common  little 
brains  call  "  the  weather."  There  is  no 
weather,  it  is  a  poor  and  pointless  term, 
there  is  only  the  mood  of  a  day,  and  how- 
ever badly  it  may  serve  our  paltry  ends  it  is 
bound  at  least  to  be  interesting.  When  one 
reflects  upon  how  little  this  great  thing  is 
regarded  and  how  constantly  from  behind 
glass,  by  miserable  men,  one  is  touched  with 
pity  for  the  ingratitude  of  the  race,  and 
astonishment  at  the  amount  of  personal 
superiority  to  be  acquired  in  a  week.  Day 
unto  day  uttereth  speech,  swinging  a  lantern  ; 
it  is  the  business  of  night  to  wait.  Day  after 
day,  too  spiritual  to  be  pagan,  too  sensuous 
to  be  divine,  speeds  out  of  time  into  the 
eternity  where  planets  are  served  in  turn. 
Behold,  in  spite  of  all  their  science,  I  show 
you  a  mystery,  high  and  strange  whether  the 
sun  is  in  his  tabernacle  or  the  clouds  are  on 


2  2  The  Crow's-Nest 

the  hills.  But  it  is  there  always,  you  can  see 
it  for  yourself.  Go  out  into  the  garden,  not 
for  a  stroll,  but  for  a  day. 

The  week  has  brought  me  —  and  how  can 
I  be  too  grateful  —  a  new  and  personal  feel- 
ing about  this  exquisite  thing  that  passes. 
Waking  in  the  blackness  of  the  very  small 
hours  I  find  a  delicate  gladness  in  the 
thought  of  the  far  sure  wing  of  the  day. 
Already  while  we  lie  in  the  dark  it  brushes 
the  curve  of  the  world  in  that  far  East  which 
is  so  much  farther,  already  on  a  thousand 
slopes  and  rice  fields  the  grey  dawn  is  be- 
ginning, beginning ;  and  sleeping  huts  and 
silent  palaces  stand  emergent,  marvellously 
pathetic  to  the  imagination.  Even  while  I 
think,  it  is  crisping  the  sullen  waves  of  the 
Yellow  Sea  ;  presently  some  outlying  reef  of 
palms  will  find  its  dim  picture  drawn,  and  then 
we  too,  high  in  the  middle  of  Hindostan,  will 
swing  under  this  vast  and  solemn  operation. 
With  that  precision  which  reigns  in  heaven 
our  turn  will  also  come,  and  in  my  garden 
and  over  the  hills  will  walk  another  day. 


Chapter    III 

THERE  is  a  right  side  and  a 
wrong  side  to  the  mountain  of 
Simla,  for  it  was  a  mountain  eight 
thousand  feet  high  and  equally 
important  long  before  it  became  the  summer 
headquarters  of  the  Government  of  India, 
and  a  possible  pin-point  on  the  map.  These 
mountains  run  across  the  tip  of  India,  you 
will  remember,  due  east  and  west,  so  that  if 
you  live  on  one  of  them  you  are  very  apt  to 
live  due  north  or  south.  On  the  south  side 
you  look  down,  on  a  clear  day,  quite  to  the 
plains,  if  that  is  any  advantage ;  you  see  the 
Punjab  lying  there  as  flat  as  the  palm  of 
your  hand  and  streaked  with  rivers,  and  the 
same  sun  that  burns  all  India  bakes  down 
upon  you.  On  the  north  side  you  have 
turned  your  back  on  Hindostan  and  sit  upon 
the  borders  of  Thibet,  a  world  of  mountains 
bars  your  horizon,  a  hermit  Mahatma  might 


2  4  The  Crow's-Nest 

abide  with  you  in  his  ashes  and  have  his 
meditations  disturbed  by  no  thought  of 
missionaries  or  income  tax.  Your  prospect 
is  all  blue  and  purple  with  a  wonderful  edge 
sometimes  of  white ;  cool  winds  blow  out  of 
it  and  fan  your  roses  on  the  hottest  day. 
Out  there  is  no-man's-land,  where  the  coolies 
come  from,  or  perhaps  the  country  of  a  little 
king  who  wears  his  crown  embroidered  on 
his  turban,  and  in  India  who  recks  of  little 
kings  ?  Out  there  are  no  Secretariats,  no 
Army  Headquarters,  no  precedence,  prob- 
ably very  little  pay,  but  the  vast  blue  free- 
dom of  it !  And  all  expanded,  all  extended 
just  at  your  front  door.     *     *     *     *     * 

The  asterisks  stand  for  the  time  I  have 
spent  In  looking  at  it.  Freely  translated 
they  should  express  an  apology.  I  find  it 
one  of  the  pernicious  tendencies  of  living  on 
this  shelf  that  my  eyes  constantly  wander 
out  there  taking  my  mind  with  them,  which 
at  once  becomes  no  more  than  a  vacant 
mirror  of  blue  abysses.  I  look,  I  know, 
ifnmensely  serious  and  thoughtful,  and 
Thisbe,  believing  me  on   the  tip    of  some 


The  Crow's-Nest         25 

high  imagination  goes  round  the  other  way, 
whereas  I  am  the  merest  reflecting  puddle 
with  exactly  a  puddle's  enjoyment  of  the 
scene.  There  is  neither  virtue  nor  profit 
in  this,  but  if  I  apologized  every  time  I  did 
it  these  chapters  would  be  impassable  with 
asterisks.  Thisbe's  method  is  much  more 
reasonable ;  she  takes  her  view  immediately 
after  she  takes  her  breakfast.  Coming  out 
upon  the  verandah  she  looks  at  it  intelli- 
gently, pronounces  it  perfectly  lovely  or 
rather  hazy,  returns  to  her  employments, 
and  there  is  an  end  to  the  matter.  One 
cannot  always,  in  Thisbe's  opinion,  be  refer- 
ring to  views.  I  wish  I  could  adopt  this 
calm  and  governed  attitude.  I  should  get 
on  faster  in  almost  every  way.  It  is  my 
ignominious  alternative  to  turn  my  back 
upon  the  prospect  and  look  up  the  khud. 

Into  my  field  of  vision  comes  Atma,  do- 
ing something  to  a  banksia  rose-bush  that 
climbs  over  a  little  arbour  erected  across  a 
path  apparently  for  the  convenience  of  the 
banksia  rose-bush.  Atma  would  tell  you, 
protector  of  the  poor,  that  he  is  the  gardener 


2  6  The  Crow's-Nest 

of  this  place ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  his  relation 
to  it  is  that  of  tutelary  deity  and  real  pro- 
prietor. I  have  talked  in  as  large  a  way  as 
if  it  belonged  to  Tiglath-Pileser  because  he 
pays  for  the  repairs,  but  I  should  have  had 
the  politeness  at  least  to  mention  Atma, 
whose  claims  are  so  much  better.  So  far  as 
we  are  concerned  Atma  is  prehistoric;  he 
was  here  when  we  came  and  when  we  have 
completed  the  tale  of  one  years  of  exile  and 
gone  away  he  will  also  be  here.  His  hut  is 
at  the  very  end  of  the  shelf  and  I  have  never 
been  in  it,  but  if  you  asked  him  how  long 
he  has  lived  there  he  would  say,  "  Always." 
It  must  make  very  little  difference  to  Atma 
what  temporary  lords  come  and  give  orders 
in  the  house  with  the  magnificent  tin  roof 
where  they  have  table-cloths ;  some,  of 
course,  are  more  troublesome  than  others, 
but  none  of  them  stay.  He  and  his  bulbs 
and  perennials  are  the  permanent  undisputed 
facts ;  it  is  unimaginable  that  any  of  them 
should  be  turned  out. 

I   am  more  reconciled  to  my  fate  when 
Atma   is   in    the   garden,   he    is   something 


The  Crow's-Nest         27 

human  to  look  at  and  to  consider,  and  he 
moves  with  such  calm  wisdom  among  the 
plants.  He  has  a  short  black  curling  beard 
that  grows  almost  up  to  his  high  cheek- 
bones, and  soft  round  brown  eyes  full  of 
guileless  cunning,  and  a  wide  and  pleasant 
smile.  He  is  just  a  gentle  hill-man  and  by- 
religion  a  gardener,  but  with  his  turban 
twisted  low  and  flat  over  his  ears  he  might 
be  any  of  the  Old  Testament  characters  one 
remembers  in  the  pictured  Bible  stories  of 
one's  childhood.  Something  primitive  and 
natural  about  him  binds  him  closely  to  Adam 
in  my  mind.  It  was  with  this  simplicity 
and  patience,  I  am  sure,  that  the  original 
cultivator  tied  up  his  banksias  and  saved  his 
portulaca  and  mignonette  after  the  fall,  when 
he  had  something  to  do  beside  come  to  his 
meals.  I  am  not  the  only  person ;  every- 
body to  whom  it  is  pointed  out  notices  at 
once  how  remarkably  Atma  takes  after  the 
father  of  us  all.  I  have  often  wished  to  call 
him  Adam  because  of  his  so  peculiarly  de- 
serving it ;  but  Tiglath-Pileser  says  that 
profane  persons,  knowing  that  he  could  not 


2  8  The  Crow's-Nest 

have  received  the  name  at  his  baptism,  might 
laugh  and  thus  hurt  his  feehngs.  So  he  is 
Atma  still.     It  is  near  enough. 

He  is  also  patriarchal  in  his  ideas.  This 
morning  he  came  to  us  upon  the  business 
of  Sropo.  Sropo,  he  said,  wished  for  six 
days*  leave  in  order  to  marry  himself. 
"  But,"  said  I,  "  this  is  not  at  all  proper. 
Sropo  went  away  last  year  to  marry  himself. 
How  shall  Sropo  have  two  wives  ? " 

"  Na,"  replied  Atma,  with  his  kindly 
smile,  "  that  was  Masuddi.  Masuddi  has 
now  a  wife  and  a  son  has  been,^  and  his 
wages  are  so  much  the  less.  Also  without 
doubt  this  Sropo  could  not  have  two  wives." 

"Certainly  not,"  said  Tiglath-Pileser, 
virtuously. 

"  Sropo  is  of  my  village,"  Atma  explained, 
genially,  "  and  we  folk  are  all  poor  men. 
More  than  one  wife  cannot  be  taken.  But 
if  we  were  rich  like  the  Presence,"  he  went 
on,  gravely,  "  we  would  have  five  or  six." 

Tiglath-Pileser  shook  his  head.  "You 
would  be  sorry,"  said  he.     "It  would  be  a 

^  Literally  :  "has  been  finished." 


The  Crow's-Nest 


mistake,"  but  only  I  saw  the  ambiguity  in  his 
eye. 

"  It  is  not  your  Honour's  custom,"  re- 
turned Atma,  simply.  "  Sropo,  then,  will  go  ? " 

"Call  Masuddi,"  said  Tiglath-Pileser. 
"It  is  a  serious  matter,  this  of  wives." 

Round  the  corner  of  the  verandah  came 
Masuddi,  shy  and  broadly  smiling,  with  an 
end  of  his  cotton  shirt  in  the  corner  of  his 
mouth  and  pulling  at  it,  as  other  kinds  of 
children  pull  at  their  pinafores. 

"Masuddi,"  said  Tiglath-Pileser,  "last 
year  you  made  a  marriage  in  your  house, 
and  now  you  have  a  son.  Er  —  which 
young  woman  did  you  marry  ?  " 

Masuddi's  smile  broadened  ;  he  cast  down 
his  eyes  and  scrabbled  the  gravel  about  with 
his  foot.     "  Tuktoo,"  he  said  shamefacedly. 

"  Well,  there  is  no  harm  in  that.  What 
is  the  name  of  your  son  ?  " 

Masuddi  looked  up  intelligently.  "  How 
should  he  have  a  name  ?  "  he  asked.  "  He  has 
not  yet  four  months.  He  came  with  the  snow. 
When  he  has  a  year,  then  he  will  get  a  name. 
My  padre-folk  —  Brahmun  —  will  give  it." 


30  The  Crow's-Nest 

"  But  you  will  say  what  it  is  to  be,"  I 
put  in. 

"  Na,"  said  Masuddi,  "  the  padre-folk  will 
say  —  to  their  liking." 

"  Masuddi,"  said  Tiglath-Pileser,  "  speak 
straight  words  —  do  you  beat  your  wife  ?  " 

"  Master,"  replied  Masuddi,  "  how  shall 
I  utter  false  talk  ?  When  she  will  not  hear 
orders  I  beat  her." 

"  Masuddi,"  said  I,  "  straight  words  — 
do  you  beat  her  with  a  stick  ?  "  Laughter 
rose  up  in  him,  and  again  he  chewed  the 
end  of  his  garment.  "According  as  my 
anger  is,"  he  said,  half  turning  away  to  hide 
his  face,  "  so  I  beat  her." 

"  Then  she  obeys  ?  " 

"  Then  fear  is  and  she  listens.  Thus  it 
is,"  said  Masuddi,  his  face  clearing  to  an 
idea,  "as  we  servant-folk  are  before  your 
Honours,  so  they-folk  are  before  us." 

"You  may  go,  worthy  Masuddi,"  pro- 
nounced Tiglath-Pileser,  "and  Atma  may 
say  to  Sropo,  who  is  listening  behind  the 
water-barrel,  that  I  have  heard  the  words 
of  Masuddi  and  they  are  just  and  reason- 


The  Crow's-Nest         3  i 

able,  and  he  may  go  also  and  marry  himself, 
but  it  must  be  done  in  six  days,  and  it  must 
not  occur  again." 

Masuddi  and  Sropo  are  two  of  the  four 
who  pull  my  rickshaw.  When  I  am  not 
taking  carriage  exercise  they  will  do  almost 
anything  else,  except  sew  or  cook,  but  I 
have  discovered  that  the  thing  they  really 
love  to  be  set  at  is  to  paint.  In  the  spring 
the  paling  required  a  fresh  brown  coat,  and 
in  a  moment  of  inspired  economy  I  decided 
that  Masuddi  and  his  men  should  be  en- 
trusted with  it.  Never  was  task  more  will- 
ingly undertaken.  With  absorption  they 
mixed  the  pigment  and  thewi-oil,  squeez- 
ing it  with  their  hands ;  with  joy  they  laid 
it  on,  competing  among  themselves,  like 
Tom  Sawyer's  schoolfellows.  "  Lo,  it  is 
beautiful ! "  Masuddi  would  exclaim  after 
each  brushful,  drawing  back  to  look  at  it. 
I  think  they  were  sorry  when  it  was  done. 

Atma  is  of  these  people,  and  the  two 
grooms,  and  Dumboo,  the  upper  house- 
maid, a  strapping  treasure  six  feet  in  his 
stockings.     I  would  like  it  better  if  all  our 


3  2  The  Crow's-Nest 

servants  were,  but  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive Sropo  doing  up  muslin  frills  —  at 
least  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  the  frills  — 
and  I  could  not  ask  people  to  eat  entrees 
sent  up  by  any  friend  of  Masuddi's.  I  ad- 
mit they  do  not  altogether  adapt  themselves, 
or  even  wash  themselves.  I  have  before 
now  locked  Masuddi  aod  the  others  up 
with  a  tub  and  a  bar  of  kitchen  soap  and 
instructions  of  the  most  general  nature,  de- 
manding, on  their  release,  to  see  the  soap. 
It  was  the  only  reliable  evidence.  Besides 
if  I  had  not  required  to  see  my  soap,  worn 
by  honest  service,  they  would  have  sold  it 
and  bought  sweetmeats  and  gone  none  the 
cleaner.  They  have  many  such  little  ways, 
which  few  people  I  know  consider  as  en- 
gaging as  I  do.  But  what  I  like  best  is 
their  lightheartedness  and  their  touch  of 
fancy.  Sropo  will  go  to  his  nuptials  with 
a  rose  behind  his  ear  —  where  in  my  bar- 
barous West  does  a  young  man  choose  to 
approach  the  altar  thus  ?  and  when  Masuddi 
courted  Tuktoo  upon  the  mountain  paths 
in  the  twilight    I    think  a   shy  idyll    went 


The  Crow's-Nest  33 

barefoot  between  them ;  though  he,  the 
male  creature,  would  make  shame  of  it  now, 
preferring  to  speak  of  sticks  and  of  obedi- 
ence. They  are  the  young  of  the  world, 
these  hill  sons  and  daughters,  and  they  still 
remember  how  the  earth  they  are  made  of 
stirs  in  the  spring.  It  is  late  evening  in 
my  garden  now  —  there  has  seemed,  some- 
how, no  good  reason  to  go  in,  though  one 
new  leaf  in  the  borders  has  long  been  just 
like  another  —  and  far  down  the  khud  I 
hear  a  playing  upon  the  flute.  It  is  a  frag- 
mentary air  but  vigorous  and  sweet,  and  it 
brings  me,  dropping  through  the  vast  and 
purple  spaces  of  the  evening,  the  most 
charming  sensation.  For  it  is  not  a  Secre- 
tary to  the  Government  of  India  who  per- 
forms, nor  any  member  of  the  choir  invisible 
that  sings  hosannas  over  there  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, but  a  simple  hill-man  who 
would  make  a  melody  because  it  is  spring, 
and  he  has  perchance  been  given  leave  to 
go  and  marry  himself. 


Chapter    IV 

PEOPLE  are  often  removed  from 
their  proper  social  spheres  in  this 
world  and  placed  in  others  which 
they  think  lower  and  generally 
less  worthy  of  them.  Their  distant  and 
haughty  behaviour  under  these  circum- 
stances is  rather,  I  am  afraid,  like  my  own 
conduct  at  present,  down  in  the  world  as  I 
am  and  reduced  to  the  society  of  a  garden. 
I,  too,  have  been  looking  about  me  with 
contemptuous  indifference,  returning  no 
visits,  though  quantities  of  things  have  been 
coming  up  to  see  me,  and  perpetually  refer- 
ring to  the  superior  circles  I  moved  in  when 
I  knew  better  days  and  went  out  to  dinner. 
You  may  notice,  however,  that  such  per- 
sons generally  end  by  condescending  to  the 
simpler  folk  they  come  to  live  among ;  it  is 
dull  work  subsisting  upon  the  most  glorious 
reminiscences  and  much  wiser  to  become  the 


The  Crow's-Nest        35 

shining  ornament  of  the  more  limited  sphere 
to  which  one  may  be  transferred.  That  is 
the  course  I  am  considering,  for  whom  cards 
of  invitation  are  dead  letters,  and  to  whom 
the  gay  world  up  here  will  soon  refer  I  have 
no  doubt,  as  the  late  Mrs.  Tiglath-Pileser 
who  chose  so  singularly  to  bestow  her  re- 
mains in  a  garden,  though  I  am  really  alive 
and  flourishing  there.  I  can  never  be  the 
shining  ornament  of  my  garden  because 
nature  intended  otherwise  and  there  is  too 
much  competition,  but  I  may  be  able  to 
exert  an  improving  influence.  It  is  not  im- 
possible, either,  that  I  may  find  the  horti- 
cultural class  about  me  more  interesting 
than  I  find  myself.  I  have  been  accustomed 
to  speak  with  quite  the  ordinary  contempt 
of  persons  who  have  "  no  resources  within 
themselves" — in  future  I  shall  have  more 
sympathy  and  less  ridicule  for  such.  I 
should  rather  like  to  know  what  one  is  ex- 
pected to  possess  in  the  way  of  "  resources  " 
tucked  away  in  that  vague  interior  which  we 
are  asked  to  believe  regularly  pigeon-holed 
and  alphabetically  classified.     We  do  believe 


36  The  Crow's-Nest 

it  —  by  an  effort  of  the  imagination  —  but 
only  try,  on  a  fine  day  out-of-doors,  to  rum- 
mage there.  Your  boasted  brain  is  a  per- 
fect rag-bag,  a  waste-paper  basket,  a  bran  pie 
from  which  you  draw  at  hazard  an  article 
value  a  penny-ha'penny.  This  is  disap- 
pointing and  humiliating  when  both  you 
and  your  family  believe  that  you  have  only 
to  think  in  order  to  be  quite  indifferent  to  the 
world  and  vastly  entertained.  "  Resources  " 
somehow  suggests  the  things  one  has  read, 
and  I  know  I  depended  largely  upon  certain 
poets,  not  one  of  whom  will  come  near  me 
unless  I  go  personally  and  bring  him  from 
the  bookshelves  in  his  covers.  Pope  for 
one  —  why  Pope  I  cannot  say,  unless  be- 
cause he  would  blink  and  cough  and  be 
fundamentally  miserable  in  a  garden  —  great 
breadths  of  Pope  I  thought  would  visit  me 
in  quotation.  Not  a  breadth.  Immortals 
of  earlier  and  later  periods  are  equally  shy ; 
I  catch  at  their  fluttering  garments  and  they 
are  off,  leaving  a  rag  in  my  hand.  Only 
that  agreeable  conceit  of  Marvell's  comes 
and  stays, 


The  Crow's-Nest         37 

"Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade," 

and  I  am  ashamed  to  look  it  in  the  face  — 
I  have  positively  worked  it  to  death. 

Apply  within  for  lofty  sentiments  or  pro- 
found conclusions,  the  result  is  the  same : 
these  things  fly  the  ardent  seeker  and  only 
appear  when  you  are  not  looking  for  them. 
Instead  you  find  shreds  of  likes  and  dis- 
likes, the  ghost  of  an  opinion  you  held  last 
week,  a  desire  to  know  what  time  it  is.  My 
regrettable  experience  is  that  you  can  explore 
the  recesses  of  your  soul  out-of-doors  in 
much  less  than  a  week  if  you  put  your  mind 
to  it,  with  surprise  and  indignation  that  you 
should  find  so  little  there. 

**  You  beat  your  pate  and  fancy  wit  will  come  ; 
Knock  as  you  please,  there  's  nobody  at  home." 

Dear  me,  there 's  Mr.  Pope,  and  very  much, 
as  usual,  to  the  point !  No,  resources  are 
things  you  can  lay  your  hands  upon,  and  I 
have  come  to  believe  that  they  are  all  in  the 
house. 

Everything  is  up  and  showing,  the  garden 


38  The  Crow's-Nest 

is  green  with  promise,  but  very  few  things 
are  quite  ready  for  my  kind  advances ;  very 
few  things  are  out.  What  a  pretty  idea,  by 
the  way,  in  that  common  little  word  as  the 
flowers  use  it !  Out  of  the  damp  earth  and 
the  green  sheath,  out  into  the  sun  with  the 
others,  out  to  meet  the  bees  and  to  snub  the 
beetles,  —  oh,  out !  When  young  girls 
emerge  into  the  world  they  too  are  "  out " 
—  the  word  was  borrowed,  of  course,  from 
the  garden  ;  its  propriety  is  plain.  Thisbe, 
I  remember,  is  out  this  season ;  but  I  do 
not  see  anything  in  the  borders  exactly  like 
Thisbe.  Doubtless  later  on  her  prototype 
will  come,  in  June  I  think,  unfolding  a  pink 
petal-coat.  There  is  no  hurry  ;  it  is  yet  only 
the  second  week  in  April  and  these  grey 
mountains  are  still  delicate  and  dim  under 
the  ideal  touch  of  the  wild  apricot  and  plum. 
The  borders  may  be  empty,  but  there  is 
sweet  vision  to  be  had  by  looking  up,  and 
just  a  hint  of  nature's  possible  purposes  with 
a  khud.  It  now  occurs  to  me  that  there 
ought  to  be  clouds  and  clouds  of  this  pink 
and  white  blossoming  all  about  the  house. 


The  Crow's-Nest         39 

behind  as  well  as  before,  on  each  of  our 
several  declivities,  —  there  ought  to  be  and 
there  is  not.  I  remember  now  why  there  is 
not.  One  crisp  morning  last  autumn  Tig- 
lath-Pileser,  who  is  a  practical  person,  was 
struck  by  the  fact,  though  it  is  not  a  new 
one,  that  wild  fruit  trees  may  be  made  to 
cultivate  fruit  by  the  process  of  grafting,  and 
announced  his  intention  to  graft  largely. 
"  Think,"  said  he,  "  of  the  satisfaction  of 
being  able  to  write  home  to  England  that 
you  are  gathering  from  your  own  trees  quan- 
tities of  the  greengages  which  they  pay  ten- 
pence  a  pound  for  and  place  carefully  in 
tarts  !  " 

The  proceeding  had  not  my  approval.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  it  would  be  a  good  deal 
of  trouble  and  care  and  thought  and  anxiety 
to  grow  greengages  on  a  khud,  and  we  had 
none  of  these  things  to  spare.  Neither 
would  there  be  any  satisfaction  in  gathering 
quantities  of  them  when  one  could  buy  a 
convenient  number  in  the  bazaar.  We  could 
not  eat  them  all,  and  it  was  not  our  walk  in 
life  to  sell  such  things ;  we  might  certainly 


40  The  Crow's-Nest 

expect  to  be  cheated.  We  should  be  re- 
duced to  making  indiscriminate  presents  of 
them  and  receiving  grateful  notes  from  peo- 
ple we  probably  could  n't  bear.  Or  possibly 
I,  like  the  enterprising  heroine  of  improving 
modern  fiction,  would  feel  compelled  to  start 
a  jam  factory,  and  did  I  strike  him,  Tiglath- 
Pileser,  as  a  person  to  bring  a  jam  factory 
to  a  successful  issue  ?  At  the  moment,  I 
remember,  an  accumulation  of  greengages 
seemed  the  one  thing  I  precisely  could  n't 
and  would  n't  tolerate,  but  I  did  n't  say  very 
much,  hardly  more  than  I  have  mentioned, 
as  the  supreme  argument  failed  to  occur  to 
me  at  the  time.  The  supreme  argument, 
which  only  visits  you  after  watching  the  pink 
and  white  petals  drop  among  the  deodars  for 
hours  together,  is,  of  course,  that  if  you  can 
aiford  to  grow  fruit  to  look  at  it  is  utilitarian 
folly  to  turn  it  into  fruit  to  eat.  So  I  have 
no  doubt  he  had  his  way.  ...  I  have  been 
to  see  ;  it  is  the  case.  Where  there  should 
be  masses  of  delicate  bloom  there  are  stumps, 
bare  attenuated  stumps,  tied  up  in  poultices 
with  fingers  sticking  out  of  them,  which  I 


The  Crow's-Nest  41 

suppose  are  the  precious  grafts.  Well,  the 
devil  enters  into  each  of  us  in  his  own  guise ; 
I  shall  warn  Tiglath-Pileser  particularly  to 
beware  of  him  in  the  form  of  a  market 
gardener. 

I  cannot  conscientiously  pass  over  the 
rhododendrons,  which  are  all  aloft  and  ablaze 
just  now.  It  would  be  unkind  and  ungrate- 
ful when  they  have  come  of  their  own  accord 
to  grow  on  my  khud  and  make  it  in  places 
really  magnificent,  though  they  arouse  in  me 
no  sentiment  at  all  and  I  had  just  as  soon 
they  went  somewhere  else.  At  home  the 
rhododendron  is  a  bush  on  a  lawn ;  here  it 
grows  into  a  forest  tree,  and  when  you  come 
upon  it  far  out  in  the  wilds  with  the  sun 
shining  through  its  red  clusters  against  the 
vivid  blue  it  stands  like  candelabra  lighted  to 
the  glory  of  the  Lord.  I  will  consent  to 
admire  it  in  that  office,  but  for  common  hu- 
man garden  uses  I  find  it  a  little  over-superb 
and  very  disconcerting  to  the  apricots  and 
plums.  Also  Thisbe  will  put  it  about  in 
bowls,  and  will  not  see  that  its  very  fitness 
for  sanctuary  purposes  makes  it  worse  than 


42  The  Crow's-Nest 

useless  on  the  end  of  a  piano.  To  begin 
with,  its  name  is  against  it.  Philologically 
speaking  you  might  as  well  put  a  hippopot- 
amus in  a  vase  as  a  rhododendron.  Apart 
from  that  it  sulks  in  the  house  and  huddles 
into  bunches  of  red  cotton.  It  misses  the 
sun  in  its  veins,  I  suppose,  and  its  spiky  cup 
of  leaves,  and  its  proper  place  in  the  world 
at  the  end  of  a  branch.  The  peony,  which 
it  is  a  little  like,  is  much  better  behaved  in 
a  drawing-room,  but  then  it  has  a  leg  to 
stand  on  ;  we  all  want  that.  Besides,  a  peony 
is  a  peony,  which  reminds  me  that  I  have 
never  seen  one  in  Simla.  It  seems  to  have 
been  left  at  home  by  design  in  the  general 
emigration  of  English  flowers,  like  an  unat- 
tractive old  maid  whom  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  bring.  But  taste  and  fashion  change, 
and  I  see  a  spot  where  a  large  bunch  of 
peonies  would  be  both  comfortable  and  de- 
lectable. It  is  not,  after  all,  only  slim  young 
things  that  are  to  be  desired  in  society  or  in 
a  garden.  Firm,  fine  high-coloured  madames 
with  ample  skirts  and  ripe  experience  are 
often  much  more  worth  cultivating. 


The  Crow's-Nest         43 

Ah  !  they  hold  me,  even  in  imagination, 
the  dear  old  peonies  !  Always  they  were  the 
first,  in  a  certain  garden  of  early  colonial 
fashion  that  I  used  to  know  in  Canada,  after 
the  long  hard  winter  was  past,  to  push  their 
red-green  beginnings  up  into  the  shabby 
welcome  of  the  month  of  March.  We  used 
to  look  for  them  under  the  wet  black  fallen 
leaves  before  a  sign  had  come  upon  the 
apple-trees,  before  anything  else  stirred  or 
spoke  at  all ;  and  how  tender  is  one's  grown- 
up affection  for  a  thing  which  bound  itself 
together  like  that  with  one's  childish  delight 
in  the  first  happy  vibration  of  the  spring ! 
Here,  after  all  these  many  springs  and  half 
across  the  world,  here  on  my  remote  and 
lofty  shelf  where  no  one  lives  but  Aryans 
and  officials,  I  want  them  to  come  up  again 
that  way,  and  if  they  have  not  forgotten 
the  joy  of  it  perhaps  I  too  shall  remember. 
Atma  having  no  objection,  I  will  send  to 
England  for  some  peonies. 

Everything  is  green  except  the  forget-me- 
nots,  they  are  very  blue  indeed  in  thick 
borders  along  both  sides  of  the  drive ;  sweet 


44  The  Crow's-Nest 

they  look,  like  narrow  streams  reflecting  the 
sky  in  the  middle  of  the  garden.  Do  not 
gather  the  forget-me-not,  it  is  a  foolish  inert 
little  nonentity  in  the  hand,  it  has  not  even 
character  enough  for  a  button-hole,  but  in 
the  bosom  of  its  family  it  is  delightful.  At- 
ma  is  very  pleased  with  these  borders ;  it  is 
the  first  time  he  has  had  them  so  long  and 
so  gay.  "How  excellent  this  season,"  says 
he  in  his  own  tongue,  "  are  the  giftie-noughts 
of  we  people."  I  told  you  he  was  a  man  of 
parts ;  it  is  not  easy  to  be  a  poet  in  another 
language. 

Also,  I  perceive,  there  are  periwinkles  on 
the  khud. 


Chapter    V 

IT  was  an  event  this  morning  when  Tha- 
lia came  whisking  along  the  Mall  in 
her  rickshaw  and  turned  in  here. 
The  Mall,  I  should  mention,  is  the 
only  road  in  Simla  that  has  a  name.  It  is  a 
deplorably  inappropriate  name,  it  makes  you 
think  of  sedan-chairs  and  elderly  beaux  and 
other  things  that  have  never  appeared  upon 
the  Himlayas,  and  it  was  doubtless  given  in 
derision,  but  it  has  stuck  fast  like  many  an- 
other poor  old  joke  until  at  last  people  take 
it  seriously  and  forget  that  it  ever  pretended 
to  be  humorous.  I  don't  even  know 
whether  it  is  more  fashionable  to  live  upon 
the  Mall  than  elsewhere,  or  whether  one 
can  claim  to  live  upon  it  when  it  runs  past 
one's  attic  windows  like  an  elevated  railway ; 
but  we  have  often  remarked  to  one  another 
that  if  we  cannot  be  said  to  live  upon  the 
Mall  we  cannot  be  said  to  live  anywhere  and 


46  The  Crow's-Nest 

taken  what  comfort  may  be  had  out  of  that. 
Our  pecuHar  situation  has  at  all  events  the 
advantage  that  I  can  always  see  Thalia  com- 
ing, which  adds  the  pleasure  of  anticipation 
to  her  most  unexpected  visit.  Like  most 
of  us,  Thalia  arrives  with  the  season,  but  it 
should  be  added  that  she  brings  the  season 
with  her.  We  amuse  ourselves  a  good  deal, 
for  a  serious  community,  with  a  toy  theatre, 
in  which  we  present  Mr.  Jones  and  Mr.  Pi- 
nero  so  intelligently  that  I  often  wonder  why 
neither  of  these  playwrights  has  yet  come 
out  to  ascertain  what  he  is  really  capable  of. 
Thalia  is  our  leading  comedienne ;  you 
would  have  guessed  that  by  her  name.  She 
is  never  too  soon  anywhere,  but  I  had  be- 
gun to  wonder  when  she  was  coming  up. 
•"  Up,"  of  course,  means  up  from  the  plains, 
— up  from  the  Pit,  as  its  present  temperature 
quite  permits  me  to  explain.  April  is  the 
last  month  in  which  you  can  leave  the  Pit 
without  being  actually  scorched. 

"  What  are  you  doing  here  ? "  she  ex- 
claimed, half-way  down  the  drive.  She  ex- 
pected, I  suppose,  to  find  me  in  the  house 


The  Crow's-Nest  47 

trying  to  decide  upon  the  shade  of  this  year's 
cheese-cloth  curtains.  By  the  way,  I  have 
decided  —  that  the  old  ones  will  do.  Thisbe 
does  n't  mind,  and  I  've  got  the  clouds. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  just  here,"  I  said  with  non- 
chalance. There  is  nothing  like  nonchal- 
ance to  prove  superiority  to  circumstances. 
"  How  are  you  ?  " 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Thalia.  "  Well,  come 
along  in.  I  've  got  quantities  of  things 
to  talk  about." 

"  It  is  very  good  of  you,"  I  returned,  "  to 
press  my  hospitality  upon  me,  but  I  don't 
go  in.  I  stay  out.  If  Tiglath-Pileser  saw 
me  entering  the  house  at  this  hour,"  I  con- 
tinued with  the  vulgarity  which  we  permit 
ourselves  to  the  indulgent  ear  of  a  friend, 
"  it  would  be  as  much  as  my  place  is  worth. 
But  you  see  I  have  a  chair  ready  for  emer- 
gencies —  pray  sit  down.  You  are  the  first 
emergency  that  has  arisen,  I  mean  that  has 
dropped  in,  this  year." 

When  I  had  fully  explained,  as  I  was  at 
once  of  course  compelled  to  do,  with  a 
wealth  of  detail  and  much  abuse  of  Tiglath- 


48  The  Crow's-Nest 

Pileser,  I  was  not  gratified  with  the  effect 
upon  Thalia.  "You  have  simply  been 
spending  your  time  out-of-doors,"  said  she, 
**  a  very  ordinary  thing  to  do." 

"Try  it,"  said  I. 

"  And  are  you  better  ?  " 

"  I  think,"  I  replied,  "  that  I  have  possi- 
bly gained  a  little  weight.  But  I  might  as 
well  admit  it  cheerfully,  they  won't  take  my 
word  against  any  pair  of  scales." 

"That  was  an  excellent  prescription  I 
sent  you  in  October,"  Thalia  continued  re- 
proachfully.    "  You  have  n't  given  it  up  ? " 

"  It  has  given  me  up,"  I  responded 
promptly,  "  after  the  first  three  weeks  it  de- 
clined to  have  anything  whatever  to  say  to 
me.  And  besides,  it  had  to  be  taken  in 
decreasing  doses.  Now  if  a  thing  is  really 
calculated  to  do  you  good  it  should  be  taken 
in  /^creasing  doses.  That  is  why  I  begin  to 
have  some  little  confidence  in  this  out-of- 
doors  business.  Every  day  I  feel  equal  to 
a  little  more  of  it." 

"  Well,"  said  Thalia,  "  Mrs.  Lyric  told 
me  that  it  had  made  another  woman  of  her. 


The  Crow's-Nest  49 

And    Colonel    Lyric    commands    the    loth 
Pink  Hussars." 

Thalia  knows   it  annoys   me  to  be   told 
about  a  woman,  with  any  sort  of  significance, 
what  position  her  husband  occupies  in  the 
world,  and  that   is  the  reason  she  does  it. 
I  do  not  say  that  it  has  no  weight  as  a  con- 
tributory fact  in  a  general  description,  but  I 
do  say  that  an  improper  amount  of  impor- 
tance is  usually  attached  to  it.      You    ask 
what  kind  of  a  person  Mrs.  Thom  is,  and 
you  are  told,  "  Oh,  Mr.  Thom  is  Chief  Sec- 
retary in  the    Department  of  Thuggi    and 
Dacoity,"    being    expected  without   further 
ado  to  dispose  yourself  to  love  her  if  she 
will  let  you.     One  is  always  inclined  to  say 
**  But  she  may  be  very  nice  in  spite  of  that," 
and  one   only  refrains   because  one   knows 
how  scandal  grows  in  Simla.     And  there  are 
people   in  these   parts,  I    assure  you,  who 
would  run  to  take    a   prescription    because 
it  had  made    another    woman    of  the    wife 
of  the  colonel  commanding  t;he   loth  Pink 
Hussars,  no  matter  what  kind  of  a  woman 
she  had  been  before ;  but  I  was  not  going 
4 


50  The  Crow's-Nest 

to  gratify  Thalia  by  letting  her  see  that  I 
knew  it. 

"At  all  events,"  I  said  calmly,  "it  had  to 
be  taken  in  decreasing  doses  and  naturally  it 
came  to  an  end.     Are  you  settled  in  ? " 

"  I  have  a  roof  to  cover  me,"  said  Thalia 
sententiously,  "and  for  that,"  she  added 
looking  round,  "I  didn't  know  how  thank- 
ful I  was.  But  I  am  undergoing  repairs. 
They  are  putting  mud  into  the  cracks  of  my 
dwelling,  paperhangers  are  impending,  and 
this  morning  arrived  three  whitewashers.  I 
wanted  to  be  done  with  it  at  once,  so  I  sent 
for  three.  I  told  them  I  was  in  a  hurry. 
In  one  breath,  they  said,  it  should  be  done, 
and  sat  down  in  the  verandah  to  make  their 
brushes.  It 's  a  fact.  Of  split  bamboo. 
You  can  not  hustle  the  East.  But  I  found 
I  had  to  come  away." 

,  "  How  foolish  it  all  seems  ! "  I  sighed  with 
an  eye  upon  the  farther  hills.  "Shouldn't 
you  like  to  see  my  pansies  ?  " 

"Yes,"  she  replied  resignedly,"  I  suppose  I 
must  see  your  pansies,"  and  where  I  led  she 
followed  me,  still  babbling  of  paperhangers. 


The  Crow's-Nest  5  i 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  during 
the  months  of  April,  May,  and  June,  there 
are  more  pansies  than  people  in  this  town. 
(Upon  second  thoughts  why  should  it  be  an 
exaggeration,  since  in  every  garden  inhabited 
by  two  or  three  persons  there  are  hundreds 
of  pansies.)  They  seem  to  like  the  official 
atmosphere,  doubtless  in  being  so  high  and 
dry  it  suits  them  ;  at  all  events  they  adapt 
themselves  to  it  with  less  fuss  than  almost 
any  other  flower.  And  certainly  they  could 
teach  individuality  to  most  of  our  worthy 
bureaucrats,  who  have  a  way  of  coming  up, 
they,  exactly  like  each  other.  Pansies  from 
the  same  parent  root  naturally  look  alike, 
but  if  you  really  scan  their  features  there  is 
not  the  least  resemblance  between  families. 
I  have  been  living  principally  in  their  fellow- 
ship for  several  days  and  I  quite  feel  that 
my  knowledge  of  human  nature  is  extended. 
There  never  was  such  variety  of  tempera- 
ment in  any  community ;  to  describe  it 
would  be  to  write  a  list  of  all  the  adjectives 
yet  invented  to  bear  upon  character,  a 
tedious  task.     It  is  positively  a  relief  after 


52  The  Crow's-Nest 

the  slight  monotony  of  a  society  in  which 
everybody  is  paid  by  the  Queen,  to  meet 
persons  like  pansies,  who  are  n't  paid  by 
anybody,  and  who  express  themselves,  in 
consequence,  with  the  utmost  facility  and 
freedom.  (Thalia,  who  is  the  wife  of  the 
Head  of  a  Department,  here  interrupted  me 
to  ask  what  I  could  possibly  mean.)  Oh 
there  is  no  charm  like  spontaneity,  in  idea, 
behaviour,  or  looks.  The  Dodos  of  Lon- 
don society  triumph  by  it,  while  self-con- 
scious people  of  vast  intellectual  resources 
are  considered  frumps. 

I  imparted  all  this  to  Thalia,  and  she 
agreed  with  me. 

You  see  these  things  in  a  pansy,  and  a 
great  deal  more  —  station  in  life,  religious 
convictions  almost  —  but  try  to  focus  your 
impression,  try  to  analyze  the  blooming 
countenance  that  looks  up  into  yours,  and 
the  result  is  fugitive  and  annoying.  Not  a 
feature  will  bear  inspection  ;  instantly  they 
vanish,  magically,  as  if  ashamed  of  the  like- 
ness you  look  for,  and  leave  you  contem- 
plating just  a  flower,  with  petals.     You  have 


The  Crow's-Nest  53 

noticed  that  in  a  pansy.  It  is  better,  if  you 
wish  to  enjoy  yourself  among  them,  to  take 
them  with  a  Hght  and  passing  regard,  and 
privately  add  them  to  the  agreeable  things 
of  life  that  will  not  bear  looking  into. 

I  here  asked  Thalia  if  she  thought  they 
did  better  from  seeds  or  from  roots,  and  she 
said  she  did  n't  know. 

One  often  hears  the  German  language 
complimented  on  its  pretty  name  for  pan- 
sies,  Stiefmutterchen,  but  it  is  very  indiscrim- 
inating.  They  are  by  no  means  all  little 
stepmothers ;  some  of  them  wear  beards 
and  I  wish  they  would  n't,  for  a  beard  is  a 
loathly  thing  in  nature  or  on  men.  Also 
the  personation  that  goes  on  among  them  is 
really  reprehensible ;  one  can  find  pansy 
photographs  of  any  number  of  people. 
One  irascible  and  impossible  old  retired 
colonel  in  England  is  always  appearing,  to 
my  great  satisfaction  and  delight.  The 
original  would  be  so  vastly  annoyed  to 
know  how  often  he  comes  out  to  see  me 
here,  and  how  amiable  and  interesting  I  find 
him,  for  we  are  not  good  friends,  and  I  am 


54         The  Crow's-Nest 

sure  he  would  not  dream  of  calling  in  the 
flesh.  It  is  an  old  story  among  us,  but  I 
was  surprised  to  find  Atma,  too,  impressed 
with  this  likeness  to  the  human  family.  I 
asked  him  the  other  day  why  some  pansies 
were  so  big  and  others  so  little.  He  con- 
sidered for  a  moment  and  then  he  said  with 
the  smiling  benevolence  which  we  extend  to 
the  intelligence  of  the  young,  "  Like  people 
they  come — some  are  born  to  be  large  and 
some  to  be  small.  As  Sropo  and  Masuddi." 
Atma  is  really  the  interpreter  of  this  garden. 
Thalia  again  interrupted  me  to  ask  why  it 
was  not  possible  this  season,  when  purple 
was  so  popular,  to  find  in  the  shops  any- 
thing as  royal  as  the  colour  a  certain  pansy 
was  wearing.  I  said  the  reason  was  prob- 
ably lost  in  science,  but  she  immediately 
supplied  it  herself,  as  I  have  noticed  my 
sex  is  prone  to  do  in  searching  for  general 
explanations.  "  Of  course,"  she  said,  "  one 
must  remember  that  they  grow  their  own 
clothes.  If  we  could  only  do  that !  The 
repose  of  being  quite  certain  that  nobody  else 
had  your  pattern  !  " 


The  Crow's-Nest  55 

"  They  would  take  too  long,"  I  objected. 
"  This  poor  thing  has  spent  three-quar- 
ters of  her  life  making  her  frock,  and 
now  she  can  only  wear  it  for  about  three 
days." 

But  Thalia  seemed  pleased  with  the  idea. 
"  Think  how  original  I  could  make  my 
gowns  in  Lady  'Thermidorey^  she  said  pen- 
sively. 

"  And  you  would  perish  with  your  design ! " 
I  exclaimed. 

"  No,"  she  cried  luminously,  "  I  should 
reappear  in  another  character  !  " 

I  have  often  noticed  how  radical  is  the 
effect  of  play-acting  upon  the  human  mind. 
Your  play-actress  throws  herself  naturally 
into  every  character  she  meets.  I  could  see 
that  it  was  giving  Thalia  hardly  any  trouble 
to  transform  herself  into  a  pansy. 

We  went  back  to  the  chairs  and  sat  down, 
but  not  for  long.  Consulting  her  watch, 
my  friend  announced  that  she  must  be 
off,  she  was  going  to  lunch  at  Delia's.  "  At 
Delia's  !  "  I  remarked.  "  How  people  are 
swallowed  up  in  their  houses,  to  be  sure ! 


5  6  The  Crow's-Nest 

You  would  be  more  polite  to  say  *  at  Delia.* 
It 's  bad  habit,  this  living  in  houses." 

"  I  think,"  she  responded,  "  that  you  are 
losing  your  social  graces.  I  had  quantities 
of  things  to  tell  you,  and  I  am  taking  them 
away  untold.  The  garden  is  too  vague  a 
place  to  receive  in.  However,  never  mind, 
I  will  try  to  come  again.  Your  flowers  are 
charming,  but  it  has  not  been  what  I  call  a 

satisfactory  visit.     I  hope  I  have  n't  bored 

>> 
you. 

"  How  can  you  say  so  !  "  I  cried  ;  "  I  have 
enjoyed  it  immensely,"  and  I  tucked  her 
affectionately  into  her  rickshaw  and  sped  her 
on  her  way.  When  she  had  well  started  I 
remembered  something,  and  ran  after  her. 

"  Well  ?  "  she  demanded,  all  interest  and 
curiosity. 

"  It  was  only  to  ask  you,"  I  said  breath- 
lessly, "  if  you  had  noticed  what  a  large 
number  of  pansies  look  like  Mr.  Asquith  ?  " 


Chapter    VI 

IT  is  a  dull  and  serious  day.  As  my 
family  declare  that  I  have  become  a 
mere  barometer  of  my  former  self, 
this  will  perhaps  be,  but  I  am  not 
certain,  a  dull  and  serious  chapter.  There 
are  no  clouds,  there  is  only  a  prevailing 
opaqueness,  which  shuts  down  just  beyond 
the  nearest  ranges,  letting  through  an  un- 
pleasant general  light  that  makes  the  place 
look  like  a  bad,  hard,  lumpish  study  in  oils. 
The  stocks,  which  have  come  out  very  ele- 
gantly since  last  week,  have  a  disappointed 
air  and  the  pansies  are  positively  lugubrious. 
Only  the  tall  field-daisies  and  the  snap- 
dragons seem  not  to  mind.  They  plainly 
preach  and  as  plainly  practise  the  philosophy 
of  flowers  taking  what  they  can  get  in  the 
hope  of  better  things.  Like  most  philoso- 
phers in  a  small  way,  however,  they  are  not 
over-distressed  with  sensibility  on  their  own 


58  The  Crow's-Nest 

part,  and  I  cannot  see  why  they  should  take 
it  upon  themselves  to  cheer  up  any  of  the 
rest  of  us. 

I  have  asked  Sropo  whether  it  is  going 
to  rain.  "Mistress,"  he  replied,  "how 
should  I  know  ?  "  "  Worthy  one,"  said  I, 
"  you  have  lived  in  these  parts  for  twenty 
years.  What  manner  of  owl  are  you  that 
to  you  it  does  not  appear  whether  or  not  it 
will  rain  ?  "  "  Mistress,"  quoth  he,  with  his 
throaty  chuckle,  "  the  rajah-folk  themselves 
do  not  know  this  thing." 

I  do  not  think,  myself,  that  we  shall  have 
anything  so  pleasant  as  rain.  The  day  is 
too  dispirited  for  weeping ;  it  will  perform  its 
appointed  task  and  go  to  bed.  I  have  not 
in  months  encountered  a  circumstance,  an 
associate  or  a  prescription  so  lowering  as  the 
present  morning.  Coming  out  as  usual, 
quite  prepared  to  be  agreeable,  it  has  given 
me  the  cold  shoulder  and  the  sulky  nod. 
For  two  pins  I  would  go  back  into  the 
house  and  take  every  flower  I  could  gather 
with  me. 

Cometh  the  postman,  advancing  down  the 


The  Crow's-Nest         59 

drive.  Always  an  interest  attaches  to  the 
postman ;  he  is  Hke  to-morrow,  you  never 
know  what  he  may  bring,  but  he  loses  half 
his  charm  and  all  his  dignity  when  deprived 
of  his  rat-tat-tat.  Government  makes  up 
for  it  to  some  extent  by  dressing  him  in  a 
red  flannel  coat  with  a  leather  belt  and  bare 
legs,  but  he  can  never  acquire  his  proper 
and  legitimate  warning  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  houses  of  this  country  have  neither 
knockers  nor  bells.  How  sharply  different 
are  the  ways  in  which  people  account  for 
themselves  in  this  world  !  It  is  one  of  the 
poignancies  of  life.  This  Punjabi  postman 
earns  his  living  by  putting  one  foot  before 
another  —  it  comes  to  that  —  in  the  diverse 
interests  of  the  community,  and  you  never 
saw  anybody  look  more  profoundly  bored 
with  other  people's  affairs.  I  earn  mine  — 
or  would  if  it  were  not  for  Tiglath-Pileser  — 
by  looking  carefully  in  the  back  of  my  head 
for  foolish  things  to  write  about  a  garden. 
It  is  a  method  so  much  pleasanter  that  my 
compassion  for  the  postman  has  a  twinge  of 
scruple  in  it  for  my  lighter  lot.     That  I  had 


6o  The  Crow's-Nest 

nothing  in  the  world  to  do  with  the  arrange- 
ment does  not  somehow  make  me  quite 
happy  about  it  —  the  fact  is  that  to  be  logi- 
cal is  not  always  to  be  happy.  I  can  only 
hope  that  if  the  postman  and  I  meet  again 
in  the  progress  of  eternity  I  shall  find  him 
composing  poems. 

He  has  brought  nothing  to  speak  of,  only 
the  daily  newspaper  published  at  Lahore. 
That  in  itself  is  sufficiently  curious,  to  live 
in  a  place  where  the  morning  paper  is 
published  at  Lahore.  Still  stranger,  to  the 
western  mind,  may  be  the  thought  —  of  a 
journal  produced  in  Allahabad.  Allahabad, 
as  a  centre  of  journalistic  enterprise,  has  the 
glamour  of  comic  opera.  Yet  Allahabad 
has  its  newspaper,  and  they  print  it  very 
nicely  too.  However,  it  would  be  ridiculous 
to  write  an  essay  upon  Indian  journalism 
merely  because  a  Punjabi  postman  has 
brought  in  a  newspaper. 

That  a  day  like  this  should  sound  another 
minor  note  is  almost  a  thing  to  cry  out 
against,  yet  it  is  on  such  days  that  they  rise 
and  swell  in  a  perfect  diapason  of  misery. 


The  Crow's-Nest         6i 

When  the  sun  withdraws  itself  from  the 
human  consciousness  things  come  up,  I 
suppose,  from  underneath.  In  the  gayety 
of  yesterday  perhaps  I  should  not  have  seen 
the  coolie  with  the  charcoal ;  he  would  have 
passed  naturally  among  the  leaf-shadows, 
a  thing  to  be  taken  for  granted.  To-day 
he  hurts.  His  bag  of  charcoal  is  deplorably 
heavy ;  he  bends  forward  under  it  so  far 
that  he  has  to  lift  his  head  to  see  beyond 
him,  and  every  muscle  strains  and  glistens 
to  carry  it.  His  gait  under  his  load  is  slow 
and  uncertain  and  tentative,  and  I  know  it 
has  brought  him  to  the  wrong  house;  we 
are  supplied  for  months  with  charcoal. 

He  has  stopped  to  ask,  and  I  find  that 
he  has  come  quite  a  mile  out  of  his  way  to 
this  mistake.  With  patience  and  submis- 
sion when  I  explained,  he  shifted  his  load 
and  turned  from  me  toward  the  deferred  re- 
lief, the  further  limit.  The  human  beast  of 
burden  is  surely  the  summing  up  of  pathos 
—  free  and  enviable  are  all  others  compared 
with  him.  So  heavy  a  toil  fills  one  with 
righteous   anger    against    the    inventor,    so 


62  The  Crow's-Nest 

primitive  a  task  humiliates  one  for  the 
race.  Niggardly,  niggardly  is  the  heritage 
of  Adam's  sons.  I  must  see  that  man 
straighten  his  back.  .  .  .  There  is  no  harm 
done ;  you  cannot  have  too  much  charcoal. 

One  questions,  on  such  a  day,  whether  it 
is  quite  worth  while,  this  attempt  by  the  as- 
sistance of  nature  to  live  a  little  longer.  I 
myself  am  almost  convinced  that  persons 
afflicted  with  the  gift  of  sympathy  would  be 
wise  to  perish  easily  and  soon,  and  should 
be  willing  to  do  so,  instead  of  throwing 
themselves  in  the  lap  of  the  mother  of  us 
all  beseeching  a  few  more  years  and  promis- 
ing to  be  very,  very  good  and  try  to  deserve 
them.  Why  protract,  at  the  expense  of  up- 
setting all  your  habits  and  customs,  an  acute 
sense  of  undeserved  superiority  to  coolies 
and  postmen ;  why  by  taking  infinite  pains 
and  indefinite  air  prolong  existence  based  on 
such  a  distressing  perception,  when  by  going 
on  with  almost  any  good  prescription  you 
are  pretty  certain  reasonably  soon  to  take 
your  comfortable  place  in  the  only  democ- 
racy which,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  a  practical 


The  Crow's-Nest         63 

working  success  ?  For  there  is  neither  class 
nor  competition  nor  capital,  nor  any  kind  of 
advantage  in  the  grave  whither  thou  goest, 
but  one  indisputable  dead  level  of  condition 
and  experience,  with  peace  and  freedom  from 
the  curse  of  evolution  ;  not  even  the  fittest 
survive. 

Comfortable  persons  like,  oh  several  I 
could  mention,  who  have  no  way  of  walking 
with  another  postman's  legs  or  bending  with 
another  coolie's  back  and  who  cannot  under- 
stand why  this  should  be  called  a  distressful 
world  which  provides  them  regularly  with 
tea  and  muffins,  should  go  on  naturally,  to 
the  end.  They  have  their  indifferent  pro- 
totypes among  the  vegetables ;  though  I 
have  noticed  that  most  flowers  look  with 
the  eye  of  compassion  upon  life.  They 
follow  the  simple  lines  upon  which  they 
were  created,  by  which  to  live  and  not  to 
observe  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ;  there  are  a 
great  many  of  them,  thousands,  in  their  pro- 
tective skins  all  over  the  world;  and  they 
are  only  interesting  of  course  to  each  other. 
Nevertheless   no   one  should  speak  slight- 


64  The  Crow's-Nest 

ingly  of  them,  for  we  all  number  them 
among  our  friends  and  relations,  and  con- 
stantly go  and  stay  with  them.  Besides,  I 
did  not  set  out  to  be  disagreeable  at  any- 
body's expense.  It  was  only  borne  in  upon 
me  that  for  us,  the  unhappy  minority  who 
have  two  sets  of  nerves,  one  for  our  own 
use  and  one  at  the  disposal  of  every  human 
failure  by  the  wayside,  the  world  is  not  likely 
to  become  a  pleasanter  place  the  longer  one 
stays  in  it.  If  continual  dropping  will  wear 
away  a  stone,  continual  rubbing  will  wear 
away  a  skin,  and  happy  is  he  or  she,  after 
sixty  or  seventy  years'  contact  with  the  mis- 
ery of  life,  who  arrives  at  the  grave  with  a 
whole  one. 

I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  poultices. 
One  of  them  is  a  thing  Tiglath-Pileser 
sometimes  says  —  that  it  is  stupid  to  talk 
about  the  aggregate  of  human  woe,  since  all 
the  pain  as  well  as  all  the  pleasure  of  the 
world  is  summed  up  in  the  individual  and 
limited  by  him.  A  battle  is  really  no  more 
than  the  killing  of  a  soldier,  a  famine  is 
comprised  in  a  death  by  starvation.     The 


The  Crow*s-Nest  65 

unit  of  experience  refuses  to  merge  in  the 
mass  ;  you  cannot  multiply  beyond  one.  I 
do  not  think  much  of  this  emollient,  but 
such  as  it  is  I  will  apply  it  if  another  cooHe 
comes  in  with  charcoal. 

Seriously  speaking,  when  your  time  comes 
—  I  hope  this  makes  nobody  uncomfortable, 
but  I  never  can  understand  why  one  should 
shirk  the  subject  instead  of  regarding  it 
with  the  interest  and  curiosity  it  naturally 
inspires  —  when  your  time  goes,  rather,  and 
leaves  you  confronted  with  that  vast  eter- 
nity so  full  of  unimaginably  agreeable  pos- 
sibilities, which  of  all  the  parts  and  members 
that  make  up  you,  shall  you  be  most  sorry 
to  relinquish  ?  I  do  not  refer  to  obscure 
organs  such  as  the  heart  and  lungs,  which 
you  never  notice  except  when  they  are  giv- 
ing trouble,  but  the  willing  agents  by  which 
you  keep  in  touch  with  the  world.  I  am 
very  fond  of  them  all,  I  am  so  accustomed 
to  their  ways  and  they  know  so  exactly  what 
I  like ;  I  could  not  dismiss  any  of  them 
without  regret,  but  I  find  degrees  in  the 
distressful  anticipation.  One's  eyes,  for 
S 


66         The  Crow's-Nest 

instance,  have  given  one  more  and  keener 
pleasure  certainly,  than  any  other  organ  ; 
but  I  could  close  my  eyes.  One's  ears  have 
registered  all  the  voices  one  loves,  and  the 
sound  of  rain  and  the  wind  among  the  pines, 
but  there  is  such  a  din  in  this  world  besides 
that  very  gladly  I  could  close  my  ears. 
One's  feet  have  been  most  wiUing  servitors, 
but  one  sees  so  little  of  them  —  would  you 
recognize  a  photograph  of  your  own  foot  ? 
For  me  it  is  the  most  grievous  thing  to 
think  that  one  will  be  obliged  to  abandon 
one's  hands.  One's  hands  are!  more  than 
servants,  they  are  friends.  One  holds  them 
in  respect  and  admiration  and  personal  affec- 
tion, and  in  the  end  is  not  what  we  write  upon 
them  the  very  summing-up  of  ourselves  ? 
And  from  the  first  spoon  they  carry  to  our 
infant  lips  to  the  adult  irritation  they  work 
off  by  tapping  on  the  table  how  much  they 
have  done  for  one !  Above  all  things  I 
shall  miss  my  hands  if  I  have  to  do  without 
them,  and  I  shall  be  profoundly  resentful, 
though  I  may  not  show  it,  when  somebody 
else  takes  the  liberty  of  folding  them  for  me. 


The  Crow's-Nest         67 

Thisbe,  coming  out  to  say  that  she  has 
neuralgia,  and  will  I  ever  come  in  to  tea, 
demands  to  know  what  I  have  written  there. 
I  shall  not  tell  Thisbe ;  it  is  a  melancholy 
of  mine  own,  compounded  of  many  simples. 
Moreover,  she  would  report  it  to  Tiglath- 
Pileser,  and  they  would  take  measures ;  I 
should  be  lucky  to  get  off  with  an  iron 
tonic. 

"  Nothing  about  you,  Thisbe." 

But  in  order  to  ascertain  what  I  really 
have  said  about  her,  —  she  has  a  hatred  of 
publicity  and  I  have  to  be  very  careful,  — 
she  goes  privily  when  I  am  immersed  in  tea, 
and  possesses  herself  of  the  whole. 

"  But  you  are  not  going  to  die,"  she 
exclaimed  with  dismay  and  disapproval. 
"We  have  made  quite  other  arrangements. 
You  can't  possibly  die,  now." 

"  Not  immediately,  in  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,"  I  respond.  "  But  there  is  no  harm 
in  looking  forward  to  it  a  little,  —  on  a  day 
like  this." 


Chapter    VI I 


THERE  are  many  methods  of 
gardening.  I  have  known  peo- 
ple who  were  not  content  with 
anything  but  actually  digging 
and  weeding,  grubbing  up  the  curly  wet 
worms  and  the  tough  roots,  and  bending 
their  own  backs  over  bulbs  and  seedlings. 
That  is  the  thorough  method,  and  though 
it  is  a  little  like  sweeping  and  scrubbing  out 
yourself  the  rooms  your  guests  are  to  occu- 
py, —  and  I  suppose  that  would  be  a  pleas- 
ure to  some  people,  —  it  is  the  method  that 
commands  the  most  respect.  Compared 
with  it  I  feel  that  I  cannot  ask  respect  for 
mine ;  I  must  be  content  with  admiration. 
My  gardening  is  done  entirely  with  scissors, 
scissors  and  discretion,  both  easy  to  use. 
With  scissors  and  discretion  I  walk  about 
my  garden,  snipping  off  the  flowers  that  are 
over.     Masuddi  comes  behind,  holding  my 


The  Crow's-Nest  69 

umbrella,  Sropo  with  a  basket  picks  up  the 
devoted  heads.  I  thus  ignore  causes  and 
deal  directly  with  results,  much  the  simplest 
and  quickest  way  when  life  is  complicated 
by  its  manifold  presentations  and  the  cares 
of  a  family.  And  the  results  are  wonderful, 
—  I  can  heartily  recommend  this  method  of 
gardening  to  any  one  who  wants  to  compass 
the  most  charming  effect  with  the  least 
exertion.  A  plant  is  only  a  big  bouquet, 
and  what  bouquet  does  not  instantly  redouble 
its  beauty  when  you  take  away  the  one  or 
two  flowers  that  have  withered  in  it?  A 
faded  flower  is  too  sad  a  comment  upon  life 
to  be  allowed  to  remain  even  on  its  parent 
stem,  besides  being  detrimental  and  untidy 
like  a  torn  petticoat.  There  should  be 
nothing  but  joy  in  the  garden,  joy  and  fresh- 
ness and  coquetry,  and  the  subtlest,  loveliest 
suggestion  of  art ;  anon  by  the  diligent 
application  of  scissors  and  discretion  I  leave 
a  flood  of  these  things  behind  me  every  day. 
No  doubt  it  is  regrettable  that  the  withered 
rags  in  Sropo's  basket  represent  the  joy  and 
coquetry  of  yesterday;  this  is  the  lesson  of 


70  The  Crow's-Nest 

life,  however,  and  one  cannot  take  account 
of  everything.  Also  you  lay  yourself  open 
to  the  charge  of  being  a  mere  lady's-maid  to 
your  garden  ;  but  worse  things  than  that  are 
said  about  nearly  everybody. 

Among  the  pansies  I  confess  I  feel  rather 
an  executioner  with  my  scissors,  though  there 
a  rigorous  policy  most  rewards  me.  Nothing 
is  so  slatternly  as  a  pansy  bed  where  some 
of  the  family  are  just  coming  out  into  the 
world,  and  others  are  beginning  to  weary  of 
it  and  others  are  going  shamelessly  to  seed. 
My  pansies  must  all  be  properly  coiffured 
and  fit  to  appear  in  society ;  when  they  be- 
gin to  pull  shawls  over  their  heads  and  take 
despondent  views  I  remove  them.  More- 
over, under  this  unremitting  discipline,  they 
will  go  on  and  on,  I  shall  have  four  months 
of  pansies ;  it  is  in  every  way  the  right  thing 
to  do. 

And  yet  it  is  a  remorseless  business,  turn- 
ing up  the  little  faces  to  see  if  they  have 
lived  long  enough  to  be  ready  for  the  guillo- 
tine. They  look  straight  at  you,  and  some 
of  them  shrink  and  some  beseech,  and  some 


The  Crow's-Nest  7 1 

are  mutely  resigned.  I  am  no  stern  Atro- 
pos,  I  am  weak  before  the  fate  I  bring  and 
often  let  it  go  ;  and  if  by  mistake  I  snip 
off  a  bud  I  hurry  on  and  try  to  forget  it. 
Has  the  divinity  who  lays  us  low  also,  I 
wonder,  his  moments  of  compunction  — 
does  he  ever  hold  his  hand  and  say  "  One 
more  day  "  ?  Or  does  he  snip  here  and  there 
at  random  "just  choosing  so"  ^  Oh  Sete- 
bos,  Setebos,  and  Setebos,  I  do  not  like  your 
role,  I  am  glad  I  am  not  an  omnipotent 
Whim ;  I  hope  my  garden  thinks  better  of 
me  than  that.  The  prevailing  expression 
among  pansies,  by  the  way,  is  that  of  appre- 
hension ;  1  hope  this  is  a  botanical  fact  and 
not  confined  to  my  pansies. 

Nothing  is  more  annoying  in  a  small  way 
in  this  world  than  to  see  your  tastes  reflected 
in  those  whom  you  consider  inferior  to  your- 
self. You  would  rather  not  share  anything 
with  such  persons,  even  a  preference.  I 
have  to  submit  to  this  vexation.  There  are 
others  hereabouts,  whom  I  have  got  into  the 
habit  of  looking  down  upon,  who  have  ex- 
actly my  idea  of  gardening.     I  hasten  to  say 


72         The  Crow's-Nest 

that  they  are  not  people  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  term.  Bold,  indeed,  would  be 
the  non-official  worm,  in  this  bureaucratic 
stronghold,  who  should  point  to  any  gazetted 
creature  about  him  and  say  "  That  is  a  lesser 
thing  than  I."  Society  would  smile  and 
decline  to  be  deceived.  For  this  is  an  or- 
dered Olympus,  the  gods  go  in  to  dinner  by 
Regulation,  their  rank  and  pay  is  published 
in  Kalends  which  anybody  may  buy,  and 
the  senior  among  them  are  diligently  wor- 
shipped by  the  junior  as  "  brass  hats."  No, 
it  would  certainly  not  be  for  the  Tiglath- 
Pilesers  who  never  sent  back  a  parcel  to  the 
draper's  tied  up  in  red  tape  in  their  lives, 
not  having  a  yard  of  it  in  the  house  for  any 
purpose,  to  give  themselves  airs  over  per- 
sons who  use  it  every  day.  But  even  a 
non-official  may  look  down  upon  a  monkey. 
My  offensive  imitators  are  monkeys. 

I  would  not  object  if  they  followed  my 
example  in  their  own  jungle  garden,  but  they 
come  and  do  it  in  mine.  Be  sure  I  never 
catch  them  at  it.  When  I  am  operating 
there  myself  they  often  leap  crashing  into 


The  Crow's-Nest         ']  ^ 

the  rhododendrons  on  the  khud  and  sit 
among  the  branches  watching  me,  whole 
troops  of  them,  but  at  a  stone  or  a  compli- 
ment they  are  off,  bounding  with  childish 
unintelligible  curses  down  the  khud.  It  is 
in  the  early  dawn  before  any  one  is  awake 
or  about,  that  they  come  with  freedom  and 
familiarity  to  walk  where  I  walk  and  do  as 
I  do.  I  can  perfectly  fancy  them  mincing 
along  in  impertinent  caricature  —  I  do  not 
mince  —  holding  up  their  tails  with  one  hand 
and  with  the  other  catching  and  clawing  hap- 
hazard at  the  flowers  as  they  imagine  I  do. 
Two  hours  later,  when  I  come  out  to  mourn 
and  storm  over  the  withering  fragments  on 
the  drive  not  a  monkey  vexes  the  horizon. 
And  they  do  what  some  people  think  worse 
than  this.  They  come  and  tear  Tiglath- 
Pileser's  carefully  bound  grafts  from  their 
adopted  stems,  and  the  young  shoots  from 
his  little  new  apple-trees  which  have  trav- 
elled all  the  way  from  England  to  live  here 
with  us  and  share  our  limitations  and  our 
shelf.  These  were  only  planted  in  February, 
and  one  of  them,  a  beginner  not  three  feet 


74  The  Crow's-Nest 

high,  had  six  of  its  very  own  apples  on  it 
yesterday.  It  is  not  a  thing  that  happens 
often,  apples  as  soon  as  that,  and  six ;  and 
Simla  is  a  place  where  there  is  so  little  going 
on  that  we  were  more  excited  about  them, 
perhaps,  than  you  would  be  at  home.  They 
were  small  apples  but  they  had  to  grow,  and 
they  were  growing  yesterday.  This  morn- 
ing while  we  still  dreamed  of  our  apples,  a 
grey  langur  with  a  black  face  ate  the  whole 
crop  at  a  sitting.  So  now  we  can  neither 
bake  them  nor  boil  them  nor  measure  them 
for  publication.  They  have  disappeared  in 
a  grey  langur  with  a  black  face,  and  though  I 
heartily  hope  they  will  inconvenience  him  I 
have  very  little  expectation  of  it ;  the 
punitive  laws  of  nature  matter  little  to 
monkeys. 

The  jungle  is  full  of  wild  fruit  trees  newly 
burgeoned,  but  the  monkeys  prefer  the  cul- 
tivated varieties,  they  have  found  out  the 
improved  flavour  even  in  the  young  leaves. 
They  find  out  everything,  not  merely  for 
the  purposes  of  honest  burglary,  but  for  the 
cynical  satisfaction  of   tearing   it  to   pieces. 


The  Crow's-Nest         75 

Thus,  for  one  graft  that  a  monkey  devours, 
he  pulls  three  out  of  their  bandages  and 
casts  them  on  the  ground,  where  they  are 
of  no  further  use  to  either  men  or  monkeys. 
What  you  plant  with  infinite  pains  they  pull 
up  by  the  roots.  "  These  people  have  done 
something;  let  us  undo  it,"  is  the  one  thought 
they  ever  think,  —  which  shows,  I  suppose, 
that  if  there  are  politics  among  them  they 
govern  strictly  on  party  lines.  It  makes  one 
very  ill-disposed  toward  them.  A  monkey 
has  entered  the  pantry  and  bolted  with  a  jam- 
pot even  while  my  back  was  turned  giving 
out  the  sugar  to  make  more  jam.  A  mon- 
key has  come  in  at  the  verandah  door  and 
abstracted  all  the  bread  and  butter  for  after- 
noon tea,  while  his  accomplice  sat  upon  the 
paling  to  gibber  "  Cave  !  "  This  was  legiti- 
mate larceny,  and  we  put  up  with  it.  Thisbe 
said  the  poor  monkey  looked  hungry,  and 
she  would  be  content  with  Madeira  cake, 
adding,  out  of  the  depths  of  her  experience, 
that  it  was  a  pity  the  monkey  that  took  the 
jam  hadn't  taken  the  bread  and  butter  too, 
—  they  went  so  well   together.     We  can  be 


76  The  Crow's-Nest 

indulgent  to  an  entirely  empty  monkey ;  we 
have  enough  in  common  with  him  to  under- 
stand his  behaviour,  and  his  villainous  pirate's 
descent  upon  us  is  always  good  comedy. 
But  when  he  picks  the  slates  off  the  roof  of 
your  dwelling,  when  he  privily  enters  your 
husband's  dressing-room  and  abstracts  the 
razor  and  strop — Tiglath-Pileser,  who  would 
not  lend  his  to  a  seraph !  —  what  kind  of 
patience  is  there  which  would  be  equal  to 
the  demand  ?  Monkeys  do  not  throw  stones 
and  break  windows  ;  one  wishes  they  would, 
since  that  would  bring  them  within  the  cog- 
nizance of  the  police  and  it  might  then  be 
possible  to  deal  with  them.  A  monkey 
would  hate  solitary  confinement  above  all 
things.  Often  in  a  troupe  bounding  from 
tree  to  tree  overhead  across  the  Mall  there 
will  be  one  with  a  collar  and  a  bit  of  rope  or 
chain  hanging  to  it,  escaped  from  capture  and 
free  again  to  range  with  his  fellows  the  limit- 
less lunatic  asylum  the  good  God  has  en- 
dowed for  him  in  the  jungle.  Once  he  became 
amenable  to  that  sort  of  punishment  he 
would  forsake  for  ever,  I  am  sure,  the  haunts 


The  Crow's-Nest  77 

of  men ;  but  he  is  not  intelligent  enough,  or 
perhaps  he  is  too  intelligent. 

There  are  so  many  of  them.  A  monkey- 
census  is  obviously  impossible,  but  I  believe 
if  it  could  be  taken  it  would  show  that  every 
resident  official  had  at  least  one  simian  coun- 
terpart, —  a  statement  which  I  hope  will  not 
give  offence  on  either  side.  An  old  fakir 
on  the  top  of  Jakko  keeps  a  kind  of  retreat 
for  monkeys,  a  monastery  with  the  most 
elastic  rules,  where  indeed  the  domestic  rela- 
tions are  rather  encouraged  than  forbidden. 
He  is  their  ghostly  father,  though  responsi- 
bility for  their  morals  seems  to  sit  upon  him 
lightly ;  he  will  call  them  out  of  the  jungle 
for  you  in  hundreds  to  be  fed.  Then  you 
give  him  four  annas  and  come  away.  A 
pious  Hindoo,  with  sins  to  expiate,  would 
doubtless  give  more,  and  the  fakir  would 
profess  to  spend  it  in  grain  for  the  monkeys. 
Here,  by  the  way,  we  have  an  explanation 
of  the  incorrigibility  of  monkeys  which  has 
not  hitherto  occurred  to  ethnographers  :  they 
consume  all  the  sins  of  the  pious  Hindoos. 
So  they  thrive  and  multiply  and  gambol  all 


yS  The  Crow's-Nest 

over  this  town  of  Simla,  its  house-tops  and 
shop-fronts,  its  gardens  and  its  public  places, 
with  none  to  make  them  afraid.  There  are 
two  small  brown  ones  sitting  on  the  paling 
looking  at  me  at  this  moment,  knowing  per- 
fectly well  that  I  will  never  interrupt  the 
flow  of  my  ideas  to  get  up  and  chase  them 
away. 

Of  course  we  try  to  make  Atma  responsi- 
ble, and  he  declares  that  he  persecutes  them 
without  ceasing,  but  we  know  better.  He 
claps  his  hands  at  them  and  shouts,  "  Go, 
brother ! "  and  that  is  all  he  does.  And 
brother  goes,  to  the  next  convenient  branch. 
We  have  given  Atma  catapults  and  he  tells 
us  that  he  uses  them  every  morning  before 
our  honours  are  awake,  but  we  are  certain  that 
he  hangs  them  on  a  nail.  And  indeed  I  do 
not  think  monkeys  would  be  very  shy  of  a 
house  defended  by  mere  catapults.  Atma, 
however,  has  taken  this  business  of  Tiglath- 
Pileser's  fruit-trees  seriously.  He  had  care- 
fully protected  every  tree  and  graft  with 
thorns,  but  the  monkeys  slid  their  hands 
in   underneath,  and   reached   up,  and   tore 


The  Crow's-Nest  79 

down  the  young  shoots  with  great  strips  of 
the  tender  bark  as  well.  He  was  angry  at 
last,  was  Atma,  and  he  asked  for  a  gun. 

"  You  would  kill  a  monkey  ? "  we  ex- 
claimed, "  you  would  break  your  one  com- 
mandment ?  "  and  Atma  cast  down  his  eyes. 

"They  are  budmash^'  said  he  (a  wicked 
and  perverse  generation),  "  and  they  eat  the 
work  of  we  people.  Why  should  they  not 
be  killed?" 

"  No,"  said  the  sahib,  "  you  are  a  good 
churchman"  —  or  words  to  that  effect  — 
"  I  know  that  you  will  not  kill  a  monkey." 
And  we  both  looked  at  him  piercingly. 

"  Nevertheless,"  said  Atma,  cheerfully 
and  shamelessly  recanting,  "  it  would  be  well 
that  a  gun  should  be.  A  gun  is  a  noise- 
making  thing.  These  bundar-^QO^lQ  have 
no  shame,  -but  it  will  appear  to  them  that 
here  a  gun  is,  and  they  will  not  come. 
Also,"  he  added  ferociously,  "  for  that  long- 
tail  apple-eating  wallah,  I  will  put  a  stone  in 
the  gun." 

He  had  definite  proposals  to  make  about 
the    gun ;    it    had    plainly     been    weighed 


8o  The  Crow's-Nest 

and  considered,  not  being  a  matter  to  be 
lightly  undertaken.  It  would  not  be  wise 
for  the  sahib  to  buy  it  in  Simla,  where  the 
price  would  be  great  and  the  article  prob- 
ably inferior.  By  our  honours*  favour  he, 
Atma,  would  go  to  his  own  village,  where 
apparently  they  knew  a  thing  or  two  about 
guns,  and  where,  since  they  were  all  poor 
men,  guns  were  also  cheap,  and  there  select 
one  for  our  approbation.  If  our  honours' 
liking  was  not,  he  added,  the  gun  could  be 
sent  back,  but  our  honours'  liking  would  be. 

"  Where  is  your  village,  worthy  one  .'' " 
asked  Tiglath-Pileser. 

Atma  waved  his  arm  across  the  purple 
masses  on  the  western  horizon.  "  I  will 
come  to  it  in  three  days,"  he  said,  and 
Tiglath-Pileser  consented. 

"He  wants  leave,"  said  the  master.  "  The 
gun  is  only  a  pretext,  but  it  *s  as  good  as  a 
dead  grandmother  any  day.     Let  him  go." 

But  punctually  on  the  evening  of  the 
tenth  day  Atma  returned  from  his  village 
shouldering  a  gun.  Pride  was  in  his  port 
and  pleasure  in  his  countenance.     It  was  an 


The  Crow's-Nest         8 1 

ancient  muzzle-loader,  respectable,  useful, 
strong,  in  no  way  to  be  compared  to  a  dead 
grandmother.  The  sahib  gave  it  the  hon- 
ourable attention  which  all  sahibs  have  for 
weapons  of  character,  while  Atma  stood  by 
and  spoke  of  it  as  it  had  been  indeed  a 
relative. 

"  Behold  it  is  a  beautiful  gun,  and  it  shall 
bring  fear.  Now  I  am  but  a  gardener  and 
know  nothing ;  but  my  father  is  a  man  with 
understanding  of  all  things,  and  though  there 
were  five  guns  to  be  bought  in  the  village, 
he  forbade  the  other  four.  My  father 
showed  me  how  the  ribs  of  this  were  thick 
and  its  stomach  was  clean  —  is  it  so,  sahib  ? 
—  and  how  it  would  speak  well  and  loudly. 
But  the  price  is  also  great.  Though  my 
father  spoke  for  three  hours,  till  he  was  in 
anger,  the  price  is  also  great." 

"How  much  ?  "  asked  Tiglath-Pileser. 

"  It  could  not  be  lessened,"  said  Atma. 
anxiously,  "thirteen  rupees." 

About  seventeen  and  sixpence! 

The  gun  speaks  well  and  loudly,  and  the 
monkeys  are  much  entertained  by  it.    They 


82  The  Crow's-Nest 

make  off  at  a  report  with  a  great  jabber  of 
concern,  but  they  have  already  discovered 
that  it  is  a  mere  expression  of  opinion,  with 
nothing  in  it  to  hurt,  and  they  come  back 
when  their  nerves  are  soothed  to  hear  it 
again.  They  know  that  you  cannot  shoot 
your  own  relations;  they  rest  with  confi- 
dence upon  the  prehistoric  tie,  and  oh,  they 
presume  upon  it !  Too  far,  perhaps.  There 
is  a  broad-faced  Thibetan  in  the  bazaar,  be- 
hind whose  cheerful  grin  I  am  sure  no 
conscience  resides  at  all.  Every  year  he 
sells  me  pheasants  and  partridges  which  I 
know  he  poaches  from  the  Kingdom  of 
Patiala  —  I  am  sure  he  would  pot  a  fellow- 
poacher  for  a  suitable  consideration.  When 
I  suggest  this,  however,  Tiglath-Pileser  asks 
me  if  I  like  the  idea  of  a  hired  assassin.  I 
do  not  like  the  idea.  I  would  rather  do  it 
myself,  although  even  justifiable  homicide  has 
never  been  a  favourite  amusement  of  mine. 
Shoot  a  monkey?  If  it  is  a  mother- 
monkey,  and  the  baby  that  clings  between 
her  shoulders  is  a  little  one,  you  cannot 
even  throw  a  stone  at  her. 


The  Crow's-Nest         83 

I  wonder  if  it  is  good  for  us  to  live  among 
them  like  this.  I  wonder  whether  the  con- 
stant spectacle  of  his  original,  glorious  free- 
dom may  not  produce  a  tendency  to  revert 
to  his  original  habits  even  in  a  brass  hat. 
It  is  a  futile  speculation,  but  there  is  a  thrill 
in  it.  One  would  know  him  of  course,  by 
the  hat,  and  the  bit  of  red  tape  hanging  to 
his  collar.  .  .  . 

What  would  you  do  about  it  — about  this 
plague,  if  it  plagued  you  ?  And  does  it  not 
mark,  like  a  picture  in  a  book  of  travels,  the 
distance  that  lies  between  us,  that  I  should 
thus  complain  to  you,  not  of  sparrows  or 
foxes  or  rats  or  rabbits  or  any  of  the  ordi- 
nary pests  of  civilization,  but  of  being  over- 
run —  simply  overrun  —  by  monkeys  ! 


Chapter    VIII 


THIS  is  going  to  be  a  day  of  roses^ 
a  grand  opening  day.  They  have 
been  getting  ready  for  weeks ; 
every  morning  there  has  been  a 
show  of  pink  promises,  half  kept,  white 
hints  and  creamy  suggestions,  and  here  and 
there  a  sweet  full-blown  advertisement ;  but 
so  much  has  been  suddenly  done  that  I 
think  the  bushes  must  have  sat  up  all  night 
to  enable  the  garden  definitely  to  make  this 
morning  its  chief  summer  announcement  — 
the  roses  are  out.  The  shelf  holds  a  great 
many  roses,  its  widest  part  indeed,  where 
the  house  stands,  is  quite  taken  up  by  a 
large  bed  of  them  which  was  meant  to  be 
oval,  and  only  is  not  because  no  design  in 
this  country  can  ever  be  described  by  even 
an  approximately  exact  term.  That  is  at 
the  side  of  the  house  ;  the  drive  runs  past  it. 
There  is  another  bed,  an  attempted  oblong, 


The  Crow's-Nest  85 

between  the  front  door  and  the  precipice  by 
way  of  being  devoted  to  them,  and  beside 
that  they  have  made  room  for  themselves 
in  all  the  borders  where  there  may  or  may 
not  be  accommodation  for  other  people ; 
and  they  climb,  as  well,  over  every  window 
that  looks  out  into  the  garden. 

It  is  our  privilege  to  entertain  largely 
among  roses ;  I  don't  believe  there  is 
another  shelf  in  Simla  that  holds  so  many. 
And  I  will  hasten  to  say  this  for  them,  that 
in  all  my  social  experience  they  offer  the 
best  example  of  hospitality  being  its  own 
reward,  which,  of  course,  goes  without 
saying ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  sit  down  for  the 
first  time  in  the  year  before  the  glory  of  the 
roses,  and  refrain  from  offering  them  a  polite- 
ness of  some  sort,  even  one  that  might  be 
taken  for  granted.  I  will  add  a  compliment 
which  is  not  perhaps  quite  so  lamentably 
obvious.  There  are  people —  moderns,  deca- 
dents —  who  will  not  subscribe  to  the  para- 
mountcy  of  the  rose.  They  produce  other 
flowers  —  hyacinths,  violets,  daffodils  —  to 
which   they    attach  the  label   of  their  poor 


86         The  Crow's-Nest 

preference.  I  will  not  dispute  any  taste  in 
theory,  but  I  will  say  this  broad,  general 
thing  which  is  evident  and  plain :  once  the 
roses  are  in  bloom,  nothing  else  in  the  gar- 
den matters.  The  rose  may  or  may  not 
be  queen,  but  when  she  appears  the  other 
flowers  dwindle  into  pretty  little  creatures  of 
no  great  pretension  who  may  come  out  or 
not  at  their  convenience.  You  will  admit 
that  if  there  is  a  rose  in  sight  you  do  not 
look  at  anything  else.  As  to  the  daffodils, 
they  came  up  a  month  ago,  and  I  cut  them . 
and  put  them  in  the  drawing-room  and 
thought    no    more    about    it. 

So  the  garden  for  me  this  morning  means 
roses  (dear  me,  yes,  those  Gloire  de  Dijons 
alone  command  it  for  yards  in  every  direc- 
tion), and  the  excitement  of  it,  the  pure  keen 
delicious  excitement  of  it,  makes  me  wonder 
whether  a  simple  life  led  in  a  cane  chair 
under  a  pencil-cedar  is  not  a  better  back- 
ground for  the  minor  sensations  than  the 
most  elaborate  existence  indoors.  But  that 
is  another  truism ;  elaboration  is  always 
bad,  it  prevents  one's  seeing   things.     An 


The  Crow's-Nest  87 

existence  obscured  by  curtains  and  frescoed 
with  invitations  from  the  Princess  would 
never,  I  am  surely  convinced,  afford  me  the 
exquisite  joy  and  wonder,  the  sense  of  ex- 
panded miracle,  that  reigns  in  me  at  this 
moment.  I  must  be  allowed  to  say  so, 
though  nothing,  I  know,  is  so  dull  as  the 
detailing  of  another  person's  sensations.  It 
will  be  admitted  that  I  do  not  often  gush, 
that  is  a  claim  I  make  with  a  good  con- 
science ;  and  if  I  were  forbidden  to  write 
emotionally  about  roses  this  morning  I 
should  simply  not  write  at  all,  which  would 
be  a  breach  of  good  manners  and  a  loss  of 
time.  If  the  truth  were  confessed,  I  have 
wasted  hours  already  congratulating  them 
upon  their  happy  advent,  I  have  been  much 
led  away  among  them  from  my  fountain 
pen ;  idleness  is  so  perfect  with  a  rose. 
After  putting  down  that  stupidity  about 
our  hospitality  being  its  own  reward,  I  fell 
into  unnumbered  asterisks,  raptures  in  the 
manner  of  M.  Pierre  Loti,  and  only  re- 
frained from  making  them  because  one 
would    not    gasp    too     obviously    after    the 


88  The  Crow's-Nest 

master.  And  now  that  I  have  pulled  my 
chair  into  the  thickest  shade  of  the  pencil- 
cedar —  it  is  little  better  after  all  than  a 
spoke  to  sit  under,  wheeling  with  the  sun  — 
and  am  once  more  prepared  to  offer  you  my 
best  attention,  down  upon  me  descends 
Delia,  waving  a  parasol  from  afar.  I  must 
introduce  Delia  ;  she  is  a  vagabond  and  an 
interruption,  but  I  shall  be  extremely  glad 
to  see  her. 

I  wonder  whether  anybody  has  ever  felt 
the  temptation  of  dealing  quite  honestly 
with  the  thousand  eyes  that  listen  to  him,  and 
putting  in  the  interruptions  as  well  as  the 
other  full-stops  that  occur  in  the  course  of  a 
morning's  work  in  manuscript,  saying  in 
brackets  exactly  where  he  was  compelled  to 
leave  off  on  account  of  a  rose  or  a  Delia. 
One  would  then  see  precisely  how  far  such  a 
one's  flight  carried  him,  and  how  long,  after 
he  had  been  brought  to  earth,  it  took  his 
beating  pinions  to  regain  the  ether.  One 
might  share  his  irritation  at  being  interrupted, 
or  one  might  wish  him  interrupted  oftener;  it 
it  would  all  depend.     At  all  events  it  would 


The  Crow's-Nest         89 

give  the  impression  of  engaging  candour,  and 
would  evoke  —  in  me,  certainly  —  the  deep- 
est sympathy,  especially  if  the  interruption 
were  domestic.  "  Here  I  was  compelled  to 
give  orders  for  dinner."  "  At  this  point  a 
man  brought  a  bill  with  a  cash  discount  on 
first  presentation  —  and  never  again  after." 
"  Just  then  Thisbe  wished  to  know  whether 
or  not  she  should  send  my  love  to  Aunt 
Sophia.  I  said  notT  1  could  weep  with 
an  author  who  put  such  things  in.  But 
instead,  for  the  sake  of  dignity  and  smooth- 
ness, most  of  them  try  to  ignore  these 
calamities,  like  painters  who  rub  a  little  oil 
into  the  edges  of  yesterday's  work ;  and  go 
on,  stifling  their  emotions.  There  is  prob- 
ably a  great  deal  of  simple  heroism  concealed 
with  care  in  the  pages  of  even  a  third-class 
novel. 

"  Are  you  writing  something  clever  ? " 
asks  Delia.  What  a  demand  she  makes 
upon  one's  reticence  !  "  Finish  it  quickly 
and  pick  me  some  roses."  So  I  finished  it 
quickly,  as  you  see.  "  I  have  passed  this 
way  several  times  lately,"  she  explains,  "and 


90  The  Crow's-Nest 

have  always  resisted  the  temptation  of  run- 
ning in.  But  this  morning  something  drew 
me  down." 

"  They  have  n't  been  properly  out  be- 
fore," I  remark.  There  is  no  use,  after  all, 
in  being  too  obtuse.  But  1  can't  go  on  jug- 
gling with  the  present  tense.  Delia  is  gone 
now.     I  shall  treat  her  as  a  historical  fact. 

"  I  hope  you  remember  what  a  lot  you 
used  to  send  me  last  year,"  she  continued, 
"  and  how  grateful  I  always  was."  I  said  I 
remembered.  "Yes,"  she  sighed.  "You 
set  yourself  a  very  good  example,"  and  at 
that  I  got  up  and  sacrificed  to  her,  with 
gladness ;  because  if  Delia  ever  suffers  cre- 
mation the  last  whiff  of  her  to  float  sadly 
away  will  be  her  passion  for  a  rose.  There 
are  people  who  might  dissolve  in  suggestion 
before  I  would  offer  up  a  single  petal,  which 
is  deplorable  in  me,  for  if  you  want  a  thing 
badly  enough  to  hint  for  it,  you  must  want  it 
very  badly  indeed.  Nevertheless,  I  think  it 
a  detestable  habit,  worse  than  punning ;  and 
nothing  rouses  in  me  a  spirit  of  fiercer,  more 
implacable  opposition  than  a  polite,  gentle. 


The  Crow's-Nest         91 

well-considered  hint.  Delia,  of  course, 
does  n't  hint,  she  prods,  and  you  accept  her 
elbow  with  delight,  sharing  the  broad  and 
conscious  humour  of  it. 

I  am  glad  Delia  dropped  in,  I  want  to 
talk  about  her ;  she  holds  to  me  so  much 
of  the  charm  of  this  irresponsible  impious 
little  Paradise  that  we  have  made  for  our- 
selves up  here  above  the  clouds  and  con- 
nected by  wire  with  Westminster.  A  wire 
is  not  a  very  substantial  thing,  and  that,  if 
you  leave  out  Mr.  Kipling,  is  all  that  at- 
taches us  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  If  an  ill- 
disposed  person,  the  Mullah  Powindah  or 
another,  should  one  day  cut  it,  we  might 
float  oflF  anywhere,  and  be  hardly  more  un- 
related to  the  planet  we  should  lodge  upon 
than  we  are  to  our  own.  The  founders  of 
Simla — may  they  dwell  in  beatitude  forever 
—  saw  their  golden  chance  and  took  it. 
Far  in  and  far  up  they  climbed  to  build  it, 
and  not  being  gods,  but  only  men,  they 
thought  well  to  leave  the  more  obvious 
forms  of  misery  out  of  their  survey  plans. 
They    brought  with    them    many  desirable 


92  The  Crow's-Nest 

things,  not  quite  enough,  but  many;  poverty 
and  sorrow  and  age  they  left  at  the  bottom 
of  the  hill.  They  barred  out  greed  and  ruin 
by  forbidding  speculation ;  they  warned  off 
the  spectre  of  decrepitude  by  the  "  age  lim- 
it "  which  sends  you  after  fifty-five  to  whiten 
and  perish  elsewhere.  This  Is  an  ordinance 
that  many  call  divine,  for  want  of  a  better 
word,  but  there  ought  to  be  a  better  word. 
They  made  it  so  expensive  that  the  widow 
in  her  black  takes  the  first  ship  to  Balham, 
and  so  attractive  that  the  widower  promptly 
marries  again.  But  they  also  arranged  with 
Death  that  he  should  seldom  show  himself 
upon  the  Mall,  so  nobody  has  rue  to  wear, 
even  with  a  difference.  From  ten  to  five 
we  compose  Blue  Books,  at  least  our  hus- 
bands do ;  the  rest  of  the  time  we  gallop 
about  on  little  country-bred  ponies,  and 
vigorously  dance,  even  to  fifty-four  years, 
eleven  months,  and  thirty  days ;  and  with 
full  hearts  and  empty  heads  —  and  this  is  the 
consummation  of  bliss  —  congratulate  our- 
selves. There  are  houses  where  they  play 
games  after  dinner.     I  myself  before  I  be- 


The  Crow's-Nest         93 

came  the  dryadess  of  a  pencil-cedar,  have 
played  games  after  dinner,  and  felt  as  jnno- 
cent  and  expansive  as  I  did  at  nine. 

Delia  draws  her  breath  in  all  this,  and 
opens  a  wicked  Irish  eye  upon  it  —  ah,  what 
Delia  does  n't  see  !  —  and  is  to  me  the  gay 
flower  of  it,  delicately  exhaling  an  essence 
of  Paris.  I  approve  myself  of  just  a  sus- 
picion of  essence  of  Paris.  We  are  none 
of  us  beasts  of  the  field.  I  regret  to  say 
that  she  misquotes.  Her  gloves  fit  per- 
fectly, and  she  carries  herself  like  a  lily  of 
the  field,  but  she  misquotes.  It  is  the 
single  defect  upon  what  she  would  be  an- 
noyed to  hear  me  call  a  lovely  character. 
I  mention  it  because  it  is  the  only  one.  If 
there  were  others,  I  should  allow  them  to 
be  taken  for  granted,  and  protect  myself 
from  the  suspicion  of  exaggerated  language. 
That  does  not  look  like  an  absolutely  seri- 
ous statement,  but  if  I  am  writing  nonsense  it 
is  entirely  the  fault  of  Delia.  She  is  packed 
with  nonsense  like  a  siphon,  and  if  you  sit 
much  out-of-doors  you  become  very  absorb- 
ent.    She  had  been  paying  calls,  and  I  was 


94  The  Crow's-Nest 

obliged  to  restore  her  with  vermouth  and 
a  biscuit.  She  was  bored  and  fatigued,  and 
she  buried  her  nose  in  her  roses  and  closed 
her  eyes  expressively.  "  The  ladies  of 
India,"  she  remarked,  "are  curiously  alike. 
Is  it  our  mode  of  thought  ?  Is  it  because 
we  have  the  same  kind  of  husbands  ?  " 

"  Some  are  much  better  than  others,"  I 
interrupted. 

'*  I  saw  eleven  of  us,"  she  went  on  with 
depression,  "  one  after  the  other,  this  morn- 
ing. I  could  n't  help  thinking  of  articles 
on  a  counter  marked  *  all  this  size  five  and 
elevenpence-ha'penny.'  " 

"  Never  mind,  Delia,"  said  I,  "  you  are 
not  at  all  alike." 

"  Oh,  and  nobody,"  she  hastened  to  apolo- 
gize, "  could  be  less  alike  than  you^ 

"  And  yet  we  are  quite  different,"  I  re- 
plied; and  Delia,  with  a  glance  of  re- 
proach and  scorn  and  laughter  said,  "  You 
jackass ! " 

Now  in  anybody  else's  mouth  this  term 
would  be  almost  opprobrious,  but  from 
Delia's   it   drops   affectionately.      It    is   an 


The  Crow's-Nest         95 

acknowledgment,  a  compliment,  it  helps  to 
lighten  the  morning.  It  is  not  everybody 
who  could  call  one  a  jackass  with  impunity, 
but  it  is  not  everybody  who  would  think 
of  doing  it.  I  should  not  wish  the  epithet 
to  become  the  fashion,  but  when  Delia  offers 
it  I  roll  it  under  my  tongue. 

"  I  am  convinced,"  said  I,  "  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  world  so  valuable  as  per- 
sonality. I  mean,  of  course,  to  other  people. 
As  you  justly  remark,  Delia,  we  are  round 
pebbles  on  this  coral  strand,  worn  smooth 
by  rubbing  against  nothing  but  each  other. 
It  is  an  obscure  and  little  regarded  form 
of  the  great  Imperial  sacrifice,  but  I  wish 
somebody  would  call  attention  to  it  in  the 
Daily  Mail  and  wring  a  tear  from  the  Brit- 
ish public.  You  have  still  a  slight  uneven- 
ness  of  surface,  my  Delia,  and  that  is  why 
I  love  you.  If  you  had  a  good  sharp  corner 
or  two,  I  should  never  let  you  out  of  my 
sight." 

"And  to  think,"  said  DeHa,  finely,  "  how 
little,  in  England,  they  prize  and  value  their 
precious  angular  old  maids  !  " 


96  The  Crow's-Nest 

"  Oh,  in  England,"  I  replied,  "  I  think 
they  are  almost  too  much  blessed.  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  tranquillity  and  repose.  You 
don't  want  the  personal  equation  at  every 
meal.  In  England,  especially  in  the  academic 
parts,  you  can't  see  the  wood  for  the  trees." 

"  And  in  America,"  observed  Delia,  "  I 
suppose  it  must  be  worse." 

"  Not  at  all,"  I  said  out  of  my  experience, 
"  in  America  there  is  as  yet  great  uniformity 
of  peculiarity,"  but  this  was  going  very  far 
afield  on  a  warm  day,  and  we  left  the  matter 
there. 

"  I  don't  think  I  like  individuality  in 
young  men,"  remarked  Delia,  thoughtfully, 
"In  young  men  it  seems  a  liberty,  almost 
an  impertinence." 

I  can  imagine  the  normal  attitude  of 
young  men  toward  Delia  being  quite  satis- 
fying, but  I  let  her  go  on. 

"  I  have  just  met  an  A.D.C.  riding  up 
the  Mall  smoking  a  pipe,"  she  continued. 
"  He  took  off  his  hat  to  me  like  a  bandit." 
Now  Simla's  traditions  of  behaviour  are 
very  strict   and   the   choicest   of  them    are 


The  Crow's-Nest         97 

locked  up  in  the  tenue  of  an  aide-de-camp. 
"It  was  quite  a  shock,"  said  Delia. 

"All  things  are  possible  in  nature,  but 
some  are  rare,"  I  told  her.  "  It  is  doubt- 
less a  remote  effect  of  all  this  Irregular 
Horse  in  South  Africa.  You  may  live  to 
boast  that  you  have  seen'  an  aide-de-camp 
ride  up  the  Mall  at  Simla  smoking  a  com- 
mon clay." 

"  It  wasn't  a  common  clay,"  she  corrected 
me. 

"  But  it  will  be  when  you  boast  of  it,"  I 
assured  her.  "  Come  and  see  my  home 
for  decayed  gentlewomen." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  cried,  and 
would  have  buffeted  me ;  but  I  led  her  with 
circumstance  to  the  edge  of  the  shelf,  over 
which  appeared  lower  down  on  the  khud 
side,  another  small  projection  which  tried  to 
be  a  shelf  and  couldn't,  but  was  still  flat 
enough  for  purposes.  There  were  sitting, 
in  respectable  retirement,  all  the  venerable 
roses  that  had  outlived  delight,  the  common 
kinds  and  those  that  had  grown  little  worth 
in  the  service  of  the  summer. 
7 


98  The  Crow's- Nest 

"  They  had  to  come  out,"  I  explained, 
"and  I  couldn't  find  it  in  my  heart  to 
throw  them  on  the  ash-heap." 

"With  all  their  modest  roots  exposed/* 
put  in  Delia.  "  Cruel  it  would  hsve 
been." 

"  So  I  planted  them  down  there,  and  I 
see  that  they  're  not  altogether  neglected. 
They  get  an  allowance  of  four  buckets  of 
water  a  day  and  a  weeding  once  a  fortnight,'* 
I  explained  further,  "  but  what  I  fancy  they 
must  feel  most  is  that  nobody  ever  picks 
them.     I  can't  get  down  to  do  that." 

"  I  'm  sure  they  look  most  comfortable," 
Delia  assured  me.  "  What  do  they  care 
about  being  picked  ?  You  lose  that  vanity 
very  early"  —  oh,  Delia!  —  "What  they 
really  enjoy  is  to  sit  in  the  sun  and  talk 
about  their  gout.  But  I  know  what  you 
mean  about  throwing  away  a  flower"  —  and 
Delia's  eyes  grew  more  charming  with  the 
sentiment  behind  them.  "  Somebody  gave 
me  a  sweet-pea  yesterday  and  the  poor  little 
thing  faded  on  me,  as  we  say  in  Ireland,  and 
of  course  I  ought  to  have  thrown  it  away. 


The  Crow's-Nest         99 

but  I  could  n't.  What  do  you  think  I  did 
with  it  ?  "     She  looked  half  ashamed. 

"What?" 

"  /  put  it  in  my  -pocket  I "  said  this  dear 
Delia. 


Chapter    IX 

I  AM  not  getting  on  at  all ;  it  is  days 
since  Delia  was  here  and  I  wrote 
about  her.  There  is  certainly  this 
advantage  in  the  walls  of  a  house, 
they  make  a  fold  for  your  mind,  which  must 
browse  inside,  picking  up  what  it  can.  But 
existence  in  a  garden  was  not  meant  to  be 
interfered  with  by  a  pen ;  we  have  the  best 
reason  for  believing  that  Adam  never  wrote 
for  publication,  much  less  Eve,  who  of 
course,  when  one  thinks  of  it,  was  absorbed 
at  that  time  in  the  first  principles  of  dress- 
making. I  envy  her  that  original  seam ; 
sewing  is  an  ideal  occupation  in  a  garden. 
You  can  be  for  ever  looking  up  and  the  hand 
goes  on  of  itself;  everything  rhymes  with 
your  needle,  and  your  mind  seems  stimulated 
by  its  perfunctory  superintendence  to  spin 
and  weave  other  things,  often  lovely  and 
interesting  things  which  it  is  a  pain  to  have 


The  Crow's-Nest      loi 

forgotten  by  dinner-time.  I  should  very 
much  prefer  fine  stitching  to  composition 
out  here  if  I  could  choose.  One  might  then 
look  at  the  sun  on  the  leaves  without  the 
itch  and  necessity  to  explain  just  what  it  is 
like.  Moreover,  there  is  always  this  worry  : 
you  cannot  make  a  whole  chapter  out  of  the 
sun  on  the  leaves,  even  at  different  angles, 
and  yet  before  that  happy  circumstance  what 
else  is  there  to  say  ?  But  how  little  use 
there  is  in  crying  for  what  one  was  not 
meant  to  have.  The  fairy  godmother  who 
put  this  unwilling  instrument  into  my  hand 
and  denied  me  a  needle  will  have  something 
to  answer  for  if  ever  I  meet  her.  Mean- 
while I  might  as  well  confess  that  my  finest 
stitching  only  makes  mirth  for  Thisbe,  and 
"  lay  a  violence,"  as  Stevenson  advises,  upon 
my  will  to  other  ends. 

It  is  the  very  height  of  the  season  in  the 
garden.  The  roses  have  held  several  draw- 
ing-rooms and  practically  everybody  is  here. 
Sweet-peas  flutter  up  two  of  the  verandah 
pillars,  the  rest  are  dark  with  honeysuckle 
and    heavy    with    Marechal     Niels.      The 


I02       The  Crow's-Nest 

pansies  are  thicker  than  ever,  and  a  very- 
elegant  double  wisteria,  a  lady  from  Japan, 
trails  her  purple  skirts  over  the  trellis  under 
which  the  rickshaws  go  to  their  abode.  The 
corn-bottles  have  come  up  exactly  where  I 
asked  them  to,  scattered  thick  among  the 
leaves  of  the  chrysanthemums  which  are 
already  tall  and  bushy.  They  are  exactly 
the  right  blue  in  exactly  the  right  green  and 
they  give  a  little  air,  not  at  all  a  disagreeable 
little  air,  of  discernment  and  sophistication 
to  their  corner  of  the  garden.  I  would  like 
to  venture  to  say  that  they  resemble  blue 
stars  in  a  green  sky,  if  I  were  sure  of  offend- 
ing nobody's  sense  of  humour.  It  is  natural 
enough  to  observe  this  and  pass  on,  but 
why  should  one  find  a  subtle  pleasure  in  the 
comparison,  and  linger  over  it  ?  It  must  be 
the  same  throb  of  joyful  activity  with  which 
the  evolved  human  intelligence  first  detected 
a  likeness  between  any  two  of  the  phe- 
nomena about  it,  and  triumphed  in  the  per- 
ception, attracted  to  wisdom  and  stirred  to 
art.  Those  indeed  were  days  to  live  in, 
when  everything  was  mysteriously  to  copy 


The  Crow's-Nest        103 

and  inherit  and  nothing  was  exploited,  ex- 
plained, laid  bare,  when  the  great  sweet 
thoughts  were  all  to  think  and  heroism  had 
not  yet  received  its  molecular  analysis,  and 
babies  equipped  with  an  instinctive  percep- 
tion of  the  fundamental  weakness  of  social- 
istic communism  were  neither  born  nor 
thought  of.  These  seem  violent  reflections 
to  make  in  a  garden,  and  they  may  well  be 
obscured  behind  the  long  bed  of  poppies 
and  field-daisies  and  more  bluets  that  runs 
along  the  side  of  the  house  under  the  win- 
dows that  support  the  roses.  If  you  can 
tell  me  for  what  primitive  reason  poppies 
and  field-daisies  and  corn-flowers  go  well 
together  I  had  rather  you  did  n't. 

I  have  clumps  and  clumps  of  hollyhocks, 
and  a  balustrade  of  them,  pink  and  white 
ones,  on  each  side  of  the  steps  that  run 
down  from  the  verandah  in  front  of  the 
drawing-room  door.  It  is  an  unsophisti- 
cated thing,  the  single  hollyhock,  like  a 
bashful  school  child  in  a  sun-bonnet.  Do 
what  you  will  you  cannot  make  it  feel  at 
home  among  the  beaux  and  belles  of  high 


I04       The  Crow's-Nest 

life  in  the  garden ;  it  never  looks  really 
happy  except  just  inside  a  cottage  paling 
with  a  bunch  of  rhubarb  on  one  side  and  a 
tangle  of  "  old  man  "  on  the  other.  Still  it 
is  a  good  and  grateful  flower  in  whatever 
station  it  pleases  the  sun  to  call  it.  It  gets 
along  on  the  merest  necessities  of  life  when 
times  are  bad  and  water  scarce,  and  flowers, 
with  anything  like  a  chance,  twice  in  the  sea- 
son. One  cannot,  after  all,  encourage  class 
feeling  in  the  garden ;  there  every  one  must 
stand  on  his  own  roots,  and  take  his  share 
of  salts  and  carbon  dioxide  without  preced- 
ence, and  the  hollyhocks  in  my  garden  re- 
ceive as  much  consideration  as  anybody. 

Petunias  are  up  all  over  the  place,  purple 
and  white  and  striped.  I  knew  by  experi- 
ence that  we  could  have  too  many  petunias 
on  this  shelf,  so  whenever  a  vague,  young 
pushing  thing  disclosed  itself  to  be  a  petunia, 
as  it  nearly  always  did,  I  requested  Atma  to 
pull  it  up.  Nevertheless  they  survive  sur- 
prisingly everywhere,  looking  out  among  the 
feet  of  the  roses,  flaunting  over  the  forget- 
me-nots,  unexpected  in  a   box  of  seedling 


The  Crow's-Nest        105 

asters.  Now  if  I  were  going  to  recognize 
social  distinctions  in  the  garden,  which  I  am 
not,  I  should  call  the  good  petunia  a  person 
unmistakably  middle-class.  Whether  it  is  this 
incapacity"  of  hers  to  see  a  snub,  or  her  very- 
full  skirt,  or  her  very  high  colour,  the  petunia 
always  seems  to  me  a  bourgeoise  little  lady 
in  her  Sunday  best,  with  her  hair  smooth  and 
her  temper  well  kept  under  for  the  occasion. 
I  think  she  leads  her  family  a  nagging  life, 
and  goes  to  church  regularly.  One  should 
always  mass  them ;  a  single  petunia  here  and 
there  among  the  community  of  flowers  is 
more  desolate  and  ineff^ective  than  most 
maiden  ladies.  Rather  late  this  spring  we 
discovered  a  corner  of  the  bed  in  front  of 
the  dining-room  window  to  be  quite  empty, 
and  what  to  put  in  we  could  n't  think,  and 
were  considering,  when  Atma  told  us  that 
he  knew  of  a  thousand  petunias  homeless 
and  roaming  the  shelf  I  quite  believed 
him,  and  bade  him  gather  them  in,  with  such 
a  resultant  blaze  of  purple  as  I  shall  never 
in  future  be  without.  The  border  just 
beyond  them  is  simply  shouting  with  yellow 


io6       The  Crow's-Nest 

coreopsis,  and  behind  that  rise  the  dark 
branches  of  the  firs  on  the  khud  side,  and 
between  these,  very  often  in  broken  pictures 
sharp  against  the  blue,  the  jagged  points 
and  peaks  of  the  far  snows.  All  this  every 
morning  the  person  has  with  her  eggs  and 
bacon  who  sits  opposite  the  dining-room 
window.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  the  other 
members  of  my  family  object  to  the  glare. 

Atma  has  a  liberal  and  progressive  mind 
toward  the  garden ;  he  is  always  trying  to 
smuggle  some  new  thing  into  it.  In  out-of- 
the-way  corners  I  constantly  come  upon 
perfect  strangers,  well-rooted  and  entirely  at 
home,  and  when  I  ask  him  by  whose  order 
they  were  admitted,  he  smiles  apologetically 
and  says  that  without  doubt  they  will  be 
very  beautiful,  and  that  his  brother  gave 
them  to  him.  He  can  never  tell  me  the 
name.  "  It  will  be  so  high,"  he  shows  me 
with  his  hand,  stooping,  "  and  the  flower 
will  be  red,  simply  red  it  will  arrive."  I 
look  at  it  without  enthusiasm,  and  weakly 
let  it  stay.  Generally  it  "  arrives  "  a  com- 
mon little  disappointment,  but  once  a  great 


The  Crow's-Nest        107 

leggy  thing  turned  out  an  evening  primrose, 
and  I  knew,  before  it  was  too  late,  that  I  had 
been  entertaining  an  angel  unawares. 

"  To  grow  a  little  catholic,"  writes  Steven- 
son, "  is  the  compensation  of  years."  Dear 
shade,  is  it  so  ?  In  the  spiritual  outlook, 
perhaps,  in  the  moral  retrospect,  —  but  in 
matters  of  taste,  in  likes  and  dislikes?  You 
who  wrote  nothing  lightly  must  have  proved 
this  dispensation,  poorer  spirits  can  only 
wish  it  more  general.  I  remember  youth 
as  curious  and  enterprising,  hospitable  to 
everything,  and  I  begin  to  find  the  middle 
years  jealously  content  with  what  they  have. 
Who,  when  he  has  reached  the  age  of  all 
the  world,  looks  with  instinctive  favour  upon 
anything  new?  An  acquaintance,  who  may 
create  the  common  debt  of  friendship ;  you 
are  long  since  heavily  involved.  An  author, 
who  may  insist  upon  intimately  engaging 
your  intelligence,  —  a  thing  you  feel,  after  a 
time,  to  be  a  liberty  in  a  new-comer.  Or 
even  a  flower,  offering  another  sentiment  to 
the  little  store  that  holds  some  pain  already. 
Now  this   godetia.     I   suppose  it  argues  a 


io8        The  Crow's-Nest 

depth  of  ignorance,  but  until  Mr.  Johnson 
recommended  it  to  me  in  the  spring,  I  had 
never  heard  of  godetia.  Mr.  Johnson  is 
the  source  of  seeds  and  bulbs  for  Simla,  we 
all  go  to  him ;  but  I,  for  one,  always  come 
away  a  little  ruffled  by  his  habit  of  referring 
to  everything  by  its  Latin  name,  and  plainly 
showing  that  his  respect  for  you  depends 
upon  your  understanding  him.  I  have 
wished  to  preserve  Mr.  Johnson's  respect, 
and  things  have  come  up  afterward  that  I 
did  not  think  I  had  ordered.  However, 
this  is  by  the  way.  Mr.  Johnson  assured 
me  that  godetia  had  a  fine  fleshy  flower 
of  variegated  colours,  would  be  an  abundant 
bloomer,  and  with  reasonable  care  should 
make  a  good  appearance.  I  planted  it  with 
misgivings,  and  watched  its  advent  with 
aloofness,  I  knew  I  should  n't  recognize  it, 
and  I  did  n't.  I  had  never  seen  it  before,  I 
very  nearly  said  so ;  and  at  my  time  of  life, 
with  so  many  old  claims  pressing,  I  could 
not  attempt  a  new  afi^ection.  And  I  have 
taken  the  present  opportunity,  when  Atma's 
back  is  turned,  and  pulled  it  all  up.     Besides 


The  Crow's-Nest      109 

it  may  have  been  fleshy,  but  it  was  n't  pretty, 
and  the  slugs  ate  it  till  its  appearance  was 
disgraceful. 

I  suppose  our  love  of  flowers  is  im- 
pregnated with  our  love  of  life  and  our 
immense  appreciation  of  each  other.  We 
hand  our  characteristics  up  to  God  to  figure 
in ;  we  look  for  them  in  animals  with  delight 
and  laughter,  and  it  is  even  our  pleasure  to 
find  them  out  here  in  the  garden.  Who 
cares  much  for  lupins,  for  example ;  they 
are  dull  fellows,  they  have  no  faces ;  yet 
who  does  not  care  for  every  flower  with  a 
heart  and  eyes,  that  gives  back  your  glance 
to  you  and  holds  up  its  head  bravely  to  any 
day's  luck,  as  you  would  like  to  do. 

But  it  is  growing  late.  I  can  still  see  a 
splendid  crimson  cactus  glooming  at  me  from 
his  tub  in  the  verandah ;  the  rest  of  the 
garden  has  drawn  away  into  the  twilight. 
Only  the  honeysuckle,  that  nobody  notices 
when  the  sun  is  bright  and  the  flowers  all 
talk  at  once,  sends  out  a  timid  sweetness  to 
the  night  and  murmurs,  "  I  am  here."  If  I 
might  have  had  a  seam  to  do,  it  would  have 


no       The  Crow's-Nest 

been  finished;  but  instead  there  has  been  this 
vexatious  chapter,  which  only  announces, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  that  another 
human  being  has  spent  a  day  in  the  garden. 
I  intended  to  write  about  the  applied 
affections. 

But  it  is  too  late  even  for  the  misap- 
plied affections,  generally  thought,  I  believe, 
the  more  interesting  presentment.  Happy 
Thisbe  on  the  verandah,  conscious  of  an- 
other bud  to  her  tapestry,  glances  at  the 
fading  west  and  makes  ready  to  put  all 
away.  I  will  lay  down  my  pen,  as  she  does 
her  needle,  and  gather  up  my  sheets  and 
scraps,  as  she  does  her  silks  and  wools  ;  and 
humbly,  if  I  can  get  no  one  else  to  do  it  for 
me,  carry  my  poor  pattern  into  the  house. 


Chapter   X 

THE  Princess  has  a  hill  almost 
entirely  to  herself.  She  lives 
there  in  a  castle  almost  entirely 
made  of  stone,  with  turrets  and 
battlements.  Her  affectionate  subjects  clus- 
ter about  her  feet  in  domiciles  walled  with 
mud  and  principally  roofed  with  kerosene 
tins,  but  they  cheerfully  acknowledge  this  to 
be  right  and  proper,  and  all  they  can  pay 
for.  One  of  the  many  advantages  of  being 
a  princess  is  that  you  never  have  to  put 
down  anything  for  house-rent ;  there  is  always 
a  castle  waiting  for  you  and  a  tax-payer 
happy  to  paper  it.  The  world  will  not 
allow  that  it  is  responsible  to  a  beggar  for 
a  crust ;  but  it  is  delighted  to  admit  that  it 
owes  every  princess  a  castle.  It  is  a  curious 
world ;  but  it  is  quite  right,  for  princesses 
are  to  be  encouraged  and  beggars  are  n't. 


112       The  Crow's-Nest 

The  Princess  is  married  to  the  Roy- 
Regent,  who  puts  his  initial  upon  Resolu- 
tions and  writes  every  week  to  the  Secretary 
of  State ;  but  it  is  the  Princess  who  is 
generally  "  at  home,"  and  certainly  the 
Princess  who  matters.  The  Roy-Regent 
may  induce  his  Government  to  make  Reso- 
lutions ;  the  Princess  could  persuade  it,  I 
am  sure,  to  break  them  —  if  she  wanted  to. 
Unfortunately  we  are  not  permitted  to  see 
that  comedy,  which  would  be  adorable.  She 
does  not  want  to.  She  is  not  what  you 
would  call  a  political  princess ;  I  have  no 
doubt  she  has  too  much  else  to  do.  To  begin 
with,  only  to  begin  with,  she  has  to  go  on  being 
beautiful  and  kind  and  unruffled ;  she  has  to 
keep  the  laughter  in  her  eyes  and  the  gentle- 
ness in  her  heart ;  she  has  to  be  witty  with- 
out being  cynical,  and  initiated  without  being 
hard.  She  has  to  see  through  all  our  little 
dodges  to  win  her  favour  and  not  entirely 
despise  us,  and  to  accept  our  rather  dull  and 
very  daily  homage  without  getting  sick  and 
tired  of  us.  To  say  nothing  of  the  Roy- 
Regent  and  the  babies  who  have  some  claims, 


The  Crow's-Nest       113 

I  suppose,  though  we  are  apt  to  talk  about 
the  Princess  as  if  she  were  here  solely  to 
hold  her  Majesty's  vice-Drawing-rooms  and 
live  up  to  a  public  ideal.  All  the  virtues,  in 
short,  which  the  rest  of  us  put  on  of  a 
Sunday,  the  Princess  must  wear  every  day ; 
and  that  is  why  it  is  so  difficult  and  often  so 
tiresome  to  be  a  real  princess. 

Fortunately  the  Simla  Princess  is  not 
expected  to  hold  her  commission  for  life. 
Her  Majesty  knew,  I  suppose,  from  her 
own  royal  experience,  how  it  got  on  the 
nerves,  and  realized  that  if  she  required  any- 
thing like  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  get 
the  right  kind  of  people.  So  at  the  end  of 
every  four  or  five  years  the  Roy-Regent 
goes  home  to  his  ordinary  place  in  the  Red 
Book  burdened  for  life  with  a  frontier  policy, 
but  never  again  compelled  to  drive  out  in 
the  evenings  attended  by  four  cantering 
Sikhs,  each  Sikh  much  larger  than  himself 
and  shaking  a  lance.  He  may  go  on  to 
greater  things,  or  he  may  simply  return  to 
the  family  estates ;  but  in  any  case  the  Prin- 
cess can  put  her  crown  away  in  a  drawer  and 
8 


114       The  Crow's-Nest 

do  things,  if  she  likes,  in  the  kitchen,  which 
must  be  a  great  rehef.  Of  course  she  can 
never  quite  forget  that  she  has  been  a  prin- 
cess, in  commission,  once.  The  thought 
must  have  an  ennobhng  effect  ever  after,  and 
often  interpose,  as  it  were,  between  the  word 
and  the  blow  in  domestic  differences.  For 
this  reason  alone,  many  of  us  would  gladly 
undertake  to  find  the  necessary  fortitude  for 
the  task ;  but  it  is  not  a  thing  you  can  get 
by  merely  applying  for  it. 

To  the  state  of  the  Princess  belongs  that 
quaint  old-fashioned  demonstration,  the 
curtsey.  The  Princess  curtseys  to  the 
Queen-Empress  —  how  I  should  like  to 
see  her  do  it !  —  and  we  all  curtsey  to 
the  Princess.  This  alone  would  make 
Simla  a  school  for  manners,  now  that  you 
have  to  travel  so  far,  unless  you  are  by  way 
of  running  in  and  out  of  Windsor  Castle,  to 
find  the  charming  form  in  ordinary  use. 
How  admirable  a  point  of  personal  contact 
lies  in  the  curtsey  —  what  deference  ren- 
dered, what  dignity  due !  "  You  are  a 
Princess,"   it   says,  "  therefore   I   bend   my 


The  Crow's-Nest        115 

knee.  I  am  a  Person,  therefore  I  straighten 
it  again,"  and  many  things  more  graceful, 
more  agreeable,  more  impertinent  than  that. 
Indeed,  there  is  a  very  little  that  cannot  be 
said  in  the  lines  and  the  sweep  of  a  curtsey. 
To  think  there  was  a  time  when  conversa- 
tion was  an  art,  and  curtseying  an  accomplish- 
ment, is  to  hate  our  day  of  monosyllables 
and  short  cuts,  of  sentiments  condensed,  and 
opinions  taken  for  granted.  One  wonders 
how  we  came  to  lose  the  curtsey,  and  hovM 
much  more  went  with  it,  how  we  could  ever 
let  it  go,  to  stand  instead  squarely  on  our 
two  feet  and  nod  our  uncompromising  heads, 
and  say  what  we  have  to  say.  I  suppose  it 
is  one  of  the  things  that  are  quite  gone ;  we 
can  never  reaffect  it,  indeed  our  behaviour, 
considered  as  behaviour,  is  growing  steadily 
worse.  Already  you  may  be  asked,  by  a 
person  whom  you  have  never  seen  before, 
whether  you  prefer  Ecclesiastics  or  Omar 
Khayyam,  or  how  you  would  define  the  ego, 
or  what  you  think  of  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  — 
matters  which  require  confidence,  almost  a 
curtain.     We  have  lost  the  art  of  the  gradual 


ii6       The  Crow's-Nest 

approach ;  presently  we  shall  hustle  each 
other  like  kinetic  atoms.  A  kinetic  atom,  I 
understand,  goes  straight  to  the  point. 

We  all  love  curtseying  to  the  Princess 
therefore,  partly  because  it  is  a  lost  art,  and 
partly  because  it  is  a  way  in  which  we  can 
say,  without  being  fulsome  or  troublesome, 
how  happy  we  are  to  see  her.  There  is 
only  one  circumstance  under  which  it  is  not 
entirely  a  privilege.  That  is  when,  dis- 
mounted, one  meets  her  in  one's  habit. 
Whether  it  is  the  long  boots  or  the  short 
skirt,  or  the  uncompromising  cut,  I  cannot 
say,  but  I  always  feel,  performing  a  curtsey 
to  the  Princess  in  my  habit,  that  I  am  in  a 
false  position.  Every  true  woman  loves  to 
stalk  about  in  her  habit,  and  tap  her  heels 
with  her  riding  crop  ;  there  is  a  shadow  of 
the  privileges  of  the  other  sex  about  it  which 
is  alluring,  and  which,  as  the  costume  is  sanc- 
tioned, one  can  enjoy  comfortably  ;  but  it  is 
not  arranged  for  curtseying,  and  there  ought 
to  be  a  dispensation  permitting  ladies  wear- 
ing it  to  bow  from  the  waist. 

Then  the  Princess  passes  on,  leaving  you 


The  Crow's-Nest       117 

smiling,  I  have  seen  people  continue  to 
smile  in  a  lower  key  for  twenty  minutes  after 
the  Princess  has  gone  by,  as  water  will  go 
on  reflecting  a  glow  long  after  the  sunlight 
has  left  it.  The  effect  is  quite  involuntary, 
and  of  course  it  looks  a  little  foolish,  but  it 
is  agreeable  to  feel,  and  nobody,  positively 
nobody,  can  produce  it  but  the  Princess. 
Indeed  the  power  to  produce  it  would  be  a 
capital  test  for  princesses. 

If  I  were  in  any  way  in  a  position  to  sub- 
mit princesses  to  tests,  I  should  offer  that  of 
the  single  pea  and  the  twenty  feather  beds 
with  confidence  to  ours.  Which  is  a  pride 
and  a  pleasure  to  be  able  to  say  in  these  days, 
when  ladies  thus  entitled  are  so  apt  to  dis- 
guise themselves  in  strong  minds  or  blunt 
noses  or  irritating  clothes.  It  is  delightful 
to  be  assured  that,  in  spite  of  this  tendency, 
the  Princess  has  not  yet  vanished,  the  Prin- 
cess of  the  fairy  tales,  the  real  Princess,  from 
among  us,  that  such  a  one  is  sitting  at  the 
moment  in  her  castle,  not  ten  minutes'  walk 
from  here,  eating  marmalade  with  a  golden 
spoon,  or  whatever  she  likes  better  than  mar- 


1 1 8       The  Crow's-Nest 

malade,  and  bringing  to  life  day  after  day 
that  delight  in  living  which  you  must  have, 
or  there 's  no  use  in  being  a  princess.  It  is 
possible  that  she  may  not  put  on  her  diadem 
every  morning;  there  is  no  necessity  for 
that,  since  you  could  not  imagine  her  without 
it ;  and  if  she  prefers  reading  her  Browning 
to  watching  her  gold-fish,  it  is  not  in  any 
way  my  affair.  Indeed,  although  she  occu- 
pies a  public  position,  there  is  no  one  who 
more  readily  accedes  her  right  to  a  private 
life  than  I,  though,  of  course,  with  the  rest 
of  her  subjects,  I  would  prefer  that  she  had 
as  little  of  it  as  possible.  It  is  said  that  the 
Roy-Regent,  knowing  what  would  be  ex- 
pected of  her,  was  not  content  until  he  had 
found  the  most  beautiful  and  agreeable  Prin- 
cess there  was ;  and  I  can  well  believe  that 
he  sailed  over  seas  and  seas  to  find  her, 
though  it  is  probably  only  a  tradition  that 
they  met  at  George  Washington's  country 
seat  where  the  Princess  was  looking  for  trail- 
ing arbutus,  —  another  lovely  thing  whose 
habitat  is  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  And  an 
improbable  tradition,  as  George  Washington 
never  encouraged  princesses. 


The  Crow's-Nest        119 

Last  night  there  was  an  entertainment  at 
the  castle  and  among  the  guests  a  chief  of 
one  of  those  smaller  Indias  that  cluster  about 
the  great  one.  He  wore  his  own  splendid 
trappings,  and  he  was  a  handsome  fellow, 
well  set  up ;  and  above  his  keen  dark  face, 
in  front  of  the  turban,  set  round  with  big 
irregular  pearls,  was  fastened  a  miniature  of 
the  Queen-Empress  who  holds  his  fealty  in 
her  hand.  To  him  the  Princess,  all  in  filmy- 
lace  with  her  diadem  flashing,  spoke  kindly. 
They  sat  upon  gold-backed  chairs  a  little  way 
apart,  and  as  she  leaned  to  confer  her  smile 
and  he  to  receive  it,  I  longed  to  frame  the  pic- 
ture and  make  perpetual  the  dramatic  mo- 
ment, the  exquisite  odd  chance.  "  Surely," 
thought  I,  "  the  world  has  never  been  so  gra- 
ciously bridged  before."  Talking  of  George 
Washington,  if  the  good  man  could  have 
seen  that,  I  think  he  might  have  melted  to- 
ward princesses  ;  I  do  not  think,  from  all 
we  know  of  him,  that  he  would  have  had 
the  heart  to  turn  coldly  away  and  disclaim 
responsibility  for  this  one.  I  wish  he  could 
have  seen  it;    yes,  and  Martha  too,  though 


i20       The  Crow's-Nest 

if  anybody  thought  necessary  to  make  trouble 
and  talk  about  sacred  principles  of  democracy, 
it  would  have  been  Martha.  Martha,  she 
would  have  been  the  one.  Her  great  and 
susceptible  husband  would  have  taken  a 
philosophic  pinch  of  snuff  and  toasted 
posterity. 

I  see  that  I  have  already  admitted  it,  I 
have  slipped  in  the  path  of  virtuous  resolu- 
tion and  lofty  indifference ;  I  have  gone 
back,  just  for  a  minute,  into  the  world.  The 
reason  I  have  neglected  every  flower  in  the 
garden  this  morning  to  write  about  the  Prin- 
cess is  that  I  have  been  dining  with  her.  It 
is  so  difiicult  to  be  unmoved  and  firm  when 
you  know  the  band  will  play  and  there  will 
be  silver  soup-plates,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
Roy-Regent  smiling  and  pleased  to  see  you, 
and  the  Roman  punch  in  the  middle  of  the 
menu.  At  home,  one  so  seldom  has  Roman 
punch  in  the  middle  of  the  menu.  Besides, 
now  that  I  think  of  it,  it  was  a  "  command  " 
invitation,  and  I  did  not  go  for  any  of  these 
reasons,  or  even  to  see  the  Princess,  but  be- 
cause I  had  to ;  a  lofty  compulsion  of  State 


The  Crow's-Nest       121 

was  upon  me,  and  nobody  would  place  her 
loyalty  in  question  on  account  of  a  possible 
draught.  If  there  had  been  a  draught  and 
I  had  taken  cold  I  should  have  felt  an  added 
nobility  to-day  ;  somewhat  the  virtue,  I  sup- 
pose, of  the  elderly  statesman  who  contracts 
a  fatal  influenza  at  a  distinguished  interment, 
and  so  creates  a  vicious  circle  of  funerals ; 
but  there  was  no  draught. 

The  Princess  Hves  in  splendid  isolation. 
If  it  were  not  for  the  Roy-Regent  and  the 
babies,  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  and 
his  family,  she  would  die  of  loneliness.  And 
of  course  the  Bishop,  though  I  can't  under- 
stand in  what  way  one  would  depend  much 
upon  a  bishop,  except  to  ask  a  blessing 
when  he  came  to  dinner.  Kind  and  human 
as  the  Princess  is  she  lives  in  another  world, 
with  an  A.D.C.  always  going  in  front  to 
tell  people  to  get  up,  "  Their  Excellencies 
are  coming."  You  cannot  ask  after  the 
Princess's  babies  as  you  would  ask  after  the 
babies  of  a  person  like  yourself;  you 
must  say,  "  How  are  Your  Excellency's 
babies  ?  "   and  this  at  once  removes  them  far 


122       The  Crow's-Nest 

beyond  the  operation  of  your  affectionate 
criticism.  When  it  is  impossible  even  to 
take  babies  for  granted  the  difficulties  of  the 
situation  may  be  imagined.  The  situation 
is  glorious  but  troubling,  your  ideas  often 
will  not  flow  freely  in  it,  and  is  there  any- 
thing more  dreadful  at  a  supreme  moment 
than  to  have  your  ideas  stick  ^  You  find 
yourself  saying  the  same  thing  you  said  the 
last  time  you  had  the  honour,  which  is  the 
most  mortifying  thing  that  can  happen  in 
any  conversation. 

I  often  wonder  whether  the  Princess  does 
not  look  at  our  little  mud  houses  and  wish 
sometimes  that  she  could  come  in.  The 
thought  is  a  reckless  one  but  I  do  entertain 
it.  If  you  take  a  kind  and  friendly  interest 
in  people  as  the  Princess  does  in  us  all,  you 
cannot  be  entirely  satisfied  merely  to  add 
them  up  as  population  and  set  them  a  good 
example.  Nor  can  it  be  very  Interesting  to 
look  at  the  little  mud  houses  and  observe 
only  that  they  have  chimneys,  and  not  to 
know  how  the  mantelpieces  are  done  or 
whether  there  is  a  piano,  or  if  anybody  else's 


The  Crow's-Nest        123 

sweet-peas  are  earlier  than  yours.  In  my 
dreams  I  sometimes  invite  the  Princess  to 
tea.  An  A.D.C.  always  comes  behind  her 
carrying  the  diadem  on  a  red  silk  cushion, 
but  at  my  earnest  prayer  he  is  made  to 
stay  outside  on  the  verandah.  We  have 
the  best  china ;  and  in  one  dream  the  Prin- 
cess broke  a  cup  and  we  wept  together. 
On  another  occasion  she  gave  me  a  recipe 
for  pickled  blackberries  and  told  me  of  a 
way  —  I  always  forget  the  way  —  of  getting 
rid  of  frowns.  There  is  generally  some- 
thing to  spoil  a  dream,  and  the  thing  that 
spoils  this  one  is  the  A.D.C,  who  will  look 
in  at  the  window.  All  the  same  we  have  a 
lovely  time,  the  Princess  ignoring  all  her 
prerogatives,  unless  I  say  something  about 
the  state  of  the  country,  when  she  instantly, 
royally,  changes  the  subject.  .  .  . 


Chapter    XI 

IF  you  choose  to  live  on  the  top  of  one 
of  the  Himalayas  there  are  some 
things  you  must  particularly  pay  for. 
One  of  them  is  earth.  Your  moun- 
tain, if  it  is  to  be  depended  upon,  is  mostly 
made  of  rock  and  I  have  already  mentioned 
how  radically  it  slopes.  So  a  garden  is  not 
at  all  a  thing  to  be  taken  for  granted.  Some- 
times you  have  a  garden  and  sometimes  only 
a  shaly  ledge,  or  you  may  have  a  garden  to- 
day which  to-morrow  has  slid  down  the  hill 
and  superimposed  itself  upon  your  neigh- 
bour below.  That  occurs  in  the  rains ;  it 
is  called  a  "  slip."  It  has  never  been  our 
experience  because  the  shelf  is  fairly  flat ; 
but  it  has  happened  to  plenty  of  people. 
I  suppose  such  a  garden  is  recoverable,  if 
you  are  willing  to  take  the  trouble,  but  it 
could  never  be  quite  the  same  thing.  The 
most  permanent  plot,  however,  requires  all 


The  Crow's-Nest        125 

kinds  of  attention,  and  one  of  the  difficulties 
is  to  keep  it  up  to  its  own  level.  Queer 
sinkings  and  fallings  away  are  always  taking 
place  in  the  borders.  Atma  professes  to 
find  them  quite  reasonable ;  he  says  the 
flowers  eat  the  earth  and  of  course  it  dis- 
appears. The  more  scientific  explanation 
appears  to  me  to  be  that  the  gnomes  of  the 
mountain  who  live  inside,  have  been  effect- 
ing repairs,  and  naturally  the  top  falls  in. 
It  may  be  said  that  gnomes  are  not  as  a  rule 
so  provident ;  but  very  little  has  yet  been 
established  about  the  Himalayan  kind  ;  they 
might  be  anything ;  they  probably  are. 

This  whole  morning  Atma  and  I  have 
been  patching  the  garden.  At  home  when 
you  buy  a  piece  of  land  you  expect  that 
enough  earth  will  go  with  it  for  ordinary 
purposes,  but  here  you  buy  the  land  first 
and  the  earth  afterwards,  as  you  want  it,  in 
basketfuls.  There  is  plenty  in  the  jungle, 
beautiful  leaf-mould,  but  it  is  against  the 
law  to  collect  it  there  for  various  reasons,  all 
of  them  excellent  and  tiresome ;  you  must 
buy  it  instead  from  the  Town  Council,  and 


126       The  Crow's-Nest 

it  costs  fourpence  a  basket.  Tiglath-Pileser 
says  it  is  the  smallest  investment  in  land  he 
ever  heard  of,  but  it  takes  a  great  many 
baskets,  and  when  the  bill  comes  in  I  shall 
be  glad  to  know  if  he  is  still  of  that  opinion. 
Meanwhile  coolie  after  coolie  dumps  his 
load  and  I  have  heard  of  no  process  that 
more  literally  improves  the  property.  You 
will  imagine  whether,  when  anything  is 
pulled  up,  we  do  not  shake  the  roots. 

How  far  a  sharp  contrast  will  carry  the 
mind !  I  never  shake  a  root  in  these  our 
limited  conditions  without  thinking  of  the 
long  loamy  stretches  of  the  Canadian  woods 
where  there  was  leaf-mould  enough  for  a 
continent  of  gardens,  and  of  the  plank 
"  sidewalk "  that  half-heartedly  wandered 
out  to  them  from  the  centre  of  what  was  a 
country  town  in  my  day,  adorned  perhaps 
at  some  remote  and  unfenced  corner  by  a 
small  grocery  shop  where  hickory  nuts  in  a 
half-pint  measure  were  exposed  for  sale  in 
the  window.  I  am  no  longer  passionately 
addicted  to  hickory  nuts  —  you  got  the 
meat  out  with  infinite  difficulty  and  a  pin. 


The  Crow's-Nest        127 

and  if  it  was  obstinate  you  sucked  it  —  but 
nothing  else,  except  perhaps  the  smell  in  the 
cars  of  the  train-boy's  oranges,  will  ever 
typify  to  me  so  completely  the  liberal  and 
stimulating  opportunities  of  a  new  country. 
The  town  when  I  was  there  last  had  grown 
into  a  prosperous  city,  and  there  were  no 
hickory  nuts  in  its  principal  stores,  but  at 
the  furthest  point  of  a  suburban  sidewalk 
I  found  the  little  grocery  still  tempting  the 
school  children  of  the  neighbourhood  with 
this  unsophisticated  product  and  the  half- 
pint  measure  in  the  window.  I  resisted  the 
temptation  to  buy  any,  but  I  stood  and  looked 
so  long  that  the  proprietress  came  curious  to 
the  door.  And  along  that  sidewalk  you 
might  have  taken  a  ton  of  leaf-mould  before 
anybody  made  it  his  business  to  stop  you. 

We  must  acknowledge  our  compensa- 
tions. Over  there  they  certainly  get  their 
leaf-mould  cheaper  than  fourpence  a  basket, 
but  they  have  nobody  to  make  things  grow 
in  it  under  a  dollar  a  day.  Here  Atma,  the 
invaluable  Atma,  labours  for  ten  rupees  a 
month  —  about    fourteen    shillings  —  and 


128        The  CrowVNest 

cooks  his  own  meal  cakes.  The  man  who 
works  for  a  dollar  a  day  does  it  in  the  ear- 
nest hope,  if  we  are  to  believe  his  later  biog- 
rapher, of  a  place  in  ward  politics  and  the 
easier  situation  of  a  local  boss.  It  would  be 
hard  to  infect  Atma  with  such  vulgar  ambi- 
tions. He  is  so  lately  from  the  hands  of 
his  Creator  that  he  has  not  even  yet  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  accumulation.  The  other 
day  I  told  him  that  he  might  take  a  quan- 
tity of  seed  and  surplus  plants,  and  sell 
them,  and  he  would  not.  "  I,  how  shall  I 
sell  ? "  he  said,  "  I  am  a  gardener.  This 
thing  is  done  by  Johnson-sahib,"  and  he 
looked  at  me  with  amusement.  I  called 
him  by  a  foolish  name  and  told  him  that  he 
should  surely  sell,  and  get  money ;  but  he 
shook  his  head  still  smiling.  "  By  your 
honour's  favour,"  he  said,  "  month  by  month 
I  find  ten  rupees.  From  this  there  is  food 
twice  a  day  and  clothes,  and  two  or  three 
rupees  to  go  by  the  hand  of  an  old  man 
who  comes  from  my  people.  It  is  enough. 
What  more?"  I  mentioned  the  future. 
"  Old .?  "  he  cried,  "  God  knows  if  I  will  be 


The  Crow' s-Nest       129 

old.  At  this  time  I  am  a  work-doing 
wallah.  When  I  am  old  and  your  honours 
are  gone  to  Belaat^  I  also  will  go,  and  live 
with  my  people." 

"  And  they  will,  without  doubt,  give  you 
food  and  clothes  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  According  as  there  is,"  he  said,  "  without 
doubt  they  will  give  it,"  and  went  on  with 
his  work. 

Here,  if  you  like,  was  a  person  of  short 
views  and  unvexed  philosophy.  A  lecture 
upon  the  importance  of  copper  coins  trem- 
bled on  my  lips,  but  I  held  it  back.  A  base 
aim  is  a  poor  exchange  for  a  lesson  in  con- 
tent, and  I  held  it  back,  wondering  whether 
my  servant  might  not  be  better  off  than  I, 
in  all  that  he  could  do  without. 

Alas  for  the  poor  people  who  have  to  pay 
at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  day  and  mind  their 
own  business  into  the  bargain !  Never  can 
they  know  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of 
life,  to  be  served  by  a  serving  people.  There 
is  a  spark  of  patriarchal  joy,  long  extinct 
west  of  Suez,  in  the  simple  old  interpretation 

1  England. 
9 


130       The  Crow's-Nest 

which  still  holds  here,  of  the  relation  of  mas- 
ter and  servant,  scolding  and  praise,  favour 
and  wrath ;  a  lifelong  wage  and  occasionally 
a  little  medicine  are  still  the  portion  of  the 
servant-folk,  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  "  Thou  wilt  not  hear  orders  ?  "  ever  a 
serious  reproach.  To  all  of  us  Outlanders 
of  the  East,  it  is  one  of  the  consolations  of 
exile,  and  to  some  of  us  a  keen  and  constant 
pleasure  to  be  the  centre  and  source  of  pros- 
perity for  these  others,  a  simple,  graphic, 
pressing  opportunity  to  do  justice  and  love 
mercy  and  walk  humbly  with  their  God.  I, 
personally,  like  them  for  themselves  —  who 
could  help  liking  Atma  ?  —  and  of  persons 
to  whom  they  do  not  at  all  appeal  I  have 
my  own  opinion.  It  is  the  difference  of 
race,  no  doubt,  which  makes  this  relation 
possible  and  enjoyable,  the  difference,  and 
what  we  are  accustomed  to  consider  the 
superiority,  of  ours.  At  home  all  generous 
minds  are  somewhat  tormented  by  a  sense 
of  the  unfairness  of  the  menial  brand,  and 
in  the  attitude  of  the  menial  mind  there  is 
nothing  to  modify  that  impression. 


The  Crow's-Nest       131 

Servants  in  this  place  are  regarded  as 
luxuries,  and  taxed.  So  much  you  pay  per 
capita,  and  whether  the  capita  belongs  to  a 
,  body  entirely  in  your  employment,  or  to  one 
which  only  serves  you  in  common  with 
several  other  people,  it  does  n't  matter ;  all 
the  same  you  pay.  Delia  and  I  share  a 
dhurjee,  or  sewing  man,  for  example,  and  we 
are  both  chargeable  for  him.  This  I  never 
could  reconcile  with  my  sense  of  justice  and 
of  arithmetic,  —  that  the  poll-tax  of  a  whole 
man  should  be  paid  on  half  a  tailor;  but 
there  is  no  satisfaction  to  be  got  out  of 
Tiglath-Pileser.  Some  people  have  more 
respect  for  the  law  than  it  really  deserves. 
I  had  the  pleasure,  however,  of  bringing  him 
to  a  sense  of  his  responsibilities  when  the 
tax-paper  came  in,  from  which  he  learned 
that  no  less  than  fifteen  heads  of  families 
looked  to  him  to  be  their  providence. 
Under  the  weight  of  this  communication  he 
turned  quite  pale,  and  sat  down  hastily  upon 
the  nearest  self-sustaining  object,  which 
happened  to  be  the  fender.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact  he  liked  the  idea.     Every  Englishman 


132       The  Crow's-Nest 

does,  and  this  is  why  a  certain  measure  of 
success  attends  not  only  his  domestic  but 
his  general  experiments  in  governing  the 
East.  He  loves  the  service  of  an  idea,  and 
nothing  flatters  him  so  truly  as  his  concep- 
tion of  all  that  he  has  to  do. 

The  ear  sharpens  if  its  owner  lives  in  the 
garden.  It  is  no  longer  muffled  by  the  four 
walls  of  a  house,  and  remote  sounds  visit  it, 
bringing  with  them  a  meaning  which  some- 
how they  never  have  indoors,  even  when 
they  penetrate  there.  Up  here  they  princi- 
pally make  one  aware  of  the  silence,  which 
is  such  a  valuable  function  of  sounds.  I 
should  like  to  write  a  chapter  about  the  quiet 
of  Simla,  but  of  course  if  one  began  like  that 
one  would  never  finish.  It  is  our  vast 
solace,  our  great  advantage  ;  we  live  without 
noise.  The  great  ranges  forbid  it ;  the  only 
thing  they  will  listen  to  is  a  salute  from  the 
big  gun,  and  they  pass  that  from  one  to 
another,  uncertain  that  is  not  an  insult.  And 
the  quenching  comment  in  the  silence  that 
follows ! 

It  is  tremendous,  invincible,  taken  up  and 


The  Crow's-Nest       133 

rewritten  in  the  lines  of  all  the  hills.  It 
stands  always  before  our  little  colony,  with  a 
solemn  finger  up,  so  that  a  cheer  from  the 
cricket  ground  is  a  pathetic  thing,  and  the 
sound  of  the  Roy-Regent's  carriage  wheels 
awakens  memories  of  Piccadilly.  We  are 
far  withdrawn  and  very  high  up,  fifty-six 
miles  down  to  the  level,  and  then  it  is  only 
empty  India  —  and  the  stillness  lies  upon  us 
and  about  us  and  up  and  down  the  khuds, 
almost  palpable  and  so  morne,  but  with  the 
sweetest  melancholy.  Consider,  you  of 
London  and  New  York,  what  it  must  be  to 
live  on  one  mountain-side  and  hear  a  crow 
caw  across  the  valley,  on  the  other.  Of 
course  we  are  a  Secretariat  people  ;  we  have 
no  factory  whistles. 

This  afternoon,  however,  I  hear  an  unli- 
censed sound.  It  is  the  sound  of  an  infant 
giving  tongue,  and  it  comes  from  the  quar- 
ters. Now  there  ought  not  to  be  a  baby  in 
the  quarters ;  it  is  against  all  orders.  No 
form  of  domestic  menage  is  permitted  there  ; 
the  place  is  supposed  to  be  a  monastery,  and 
the  servants  to  house  their  women-folk  else- 


134       The  Crow's-Nest 

where.  The  sound  is  as  persistent  as  it  is 
unwarrantable ;  it  is  not  only  a  breach  of 
custom,  but  displeasing.  How  am  I  to 
reckon  with  it  ?  I  may  send  for  Dumboo 
and  complain.  In  that  case  the  noise  will 
cease  at  once ;  they  will  give  opium  to  the 
child,  which  will  injure  its  digestion,  and  in 
the  future,  as  a  grown-up  person,  it  will  enjoy 
life  less  because  I  could  not  put  up  with  its 
crying  as  an  infant.  I  can  report  the  matter 
to  Tiglath-Pileser,  which  would  mean  an  end 
to  the  baby,  not  illegally,  by  banishment. 
But  is  it  so  easy?  One  approves,  of  course, 
of  all  measures  to  discourage  them  about  the 
premises,  but  when  in  spite  of  rules  and 
regulations  a  baby  has  found  its  way  in,  and 
is  already  lamenting  its  worldly  prospects  at 
the  top  of  its  voice,  in  honest  confidence 
that  at  least  the  roof  over  its  head  will  be 
permanent,  a  complication  arises.  I  cannot 
dislodge  such  a  one.  Better  deafness  and 
complicity. 

Far  down  the  khud  side  an  Imperial 
bugle.  Abroad  the  spaces  the  mountains 
stand    in,    and    purple   valleys    deepening. 


The  Crow's-Nest        135 

Among  the  deodars  a  whisper,  not  of  scan- 
dal, believe  me.  A  mere  announcement 
that  the  day  is  done.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  hill  a  pony  trotting,  farther  and  fainter 
receding,  but  at  the  farthest  and  faintest  it 
is  plain  that  he  goes  short  in  front.  From 
the  bazaar  a  temple  bell,  with  the  tongue  of 
an  alien  religion.  .  .  . 


Chapter    XII 


TO-DAY  I  think  India,  down  be- 
low there  on  the  other  side  of 
the  hill,  must  be  at  its  hottest. 
A  white  dust  haze  hangs  over 
the  plains,  but  we  know  what  is  going  on 
under  it;  nearly  all  of  us  have  gasped 
through  June  more  than  once  in  those  re- 
gions. It  is  the  time  when  you  take  medical 
advice  before  committing  yourself  to  a  rail- 
way journey,  even  with  the  provision  of  a 
cracked-ice  pillow,  — the  favourite  time  to 
step  out  of  the  train  and  die  of  cholera  in  the 
waiting  room.  It  is  also  the  very  special 
time  for  the  British  private  soldier  to  go 
out  in  anger  and  kick  with  his  foot  the  pun- 
kah-wallah who  has  fallen  asleep  with  the 
slack  rope  in  his  hand,  so  that  the  punkah- 
wallah,  in  whom  is  concealed  unknown  to 
the  private  soldier  an  enlarged  spleen,  im- 
mediately dies.     There  is  then  trouble  and 


The  Crow's-Nest       137 

high-talking,  because  of  the  people  who  con- 
sider that  the  death  of  a  punkah-wallah  de- 
mands the  life  of  a  private  soldier  who  only- 
meant  to  admonish  him,  a  contention  which 
cannot  be  judged  without  a  knowledge  of 
the  relative  values  concerned,  and  an  experi- 
ence of  the  temperature  in  which  the  rash 
and  negligent  act  was  committed.  There  is 
reason  in  the  superstition  which  associates 
great  heat  with  the  devil.  Operating  alone, 
it  can  do  almost  as  much  as  he  can. 

The  dust  haze  from  the  plains  hangs  all 
about  us,  obscuring  even  the  near  ranges, 
impalpable  but  curiously  solid.  It  has  a 
flavour  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  taste  if 
ever  one  breathes  through  the  mouth,  and 
hour  by  hour  it  silently  gathers  upon  the 
furniture.  It  has  been  like  this  for  a  week, 
pressing  round  us  at  a  measured  distance, 
which  just  enables  us  to  see  our  own  houses 
and  gardens.  Within  that  space,  the  sun- 
light and  every  circumstance  as  usual.  It  is 
a  little  Hke  living  under  a  ground-glass  bell. 
Do  not  choose  the  present  time  of  year  to 
come    to  see    Simla.     You  would    have  to 


138        The  Crow's-Nest 

make  a  house-to-house  visitation,  and  piece 
it  together  from  memory. 

Even  here,  in  the  garden,  much  too  hot 
the  eye  of  heaven  shines.  I  have  abandoned 
the  pencil-cedar,  and  taken  refuge  under  a 
trellis  covered  with  a  banksia  rose,  which  is 
thicker,  and  I  have  added  to  my  defences  a 
pith  hat  and  an  umbrella.  Notwithstanding 
these  precautions,  we  all  gasp  together  to-day 
in  the  garden ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  agree 
with  the  mignonette,  which  is  not  as  a  rule 
talkative,  that  this  is  no  longer  the  summer 
—  exquisite  word  —  that  we  expect  in  Simla, 
but  the  odious  "  hot  weather  "  which  comes 
instead  in  the  country  down  below.  The 
mignonette,  by  the  way,  stands  to  my  dis- 
cernment, immediately  under  the  pencil- 
cedar.  When  I  sowed  it  there  in  the  spring, 
Tiglath-Pileser  said,  "It  will  never  do  any- 
thing under  a  conifer."  When  it  began  to 
show,  he  said  again,  "It  may  come  up,  but 
it  will  never  do  anything.  Nothing  ever 
does  anything  under  a  conifer."  Atma  was 
not  of  this  advice.  "  Come  up  ? "  he  said, 
looking  at  it  sternly,  "wherefore  should  it 


The  Crow's-Nest        139 

not  come  up,  if  your  honour  wishes  it  ?  " 
Atma  always  takes  this  view ;  he  seems  to 
suppose  that  the  flowers,  like  himself,  are 
above  all  things  anxious  to  please,  and  if 
any  of  them  fail  in  their  duty,  he  implies, 
with  indignation,  that  he  will  know  the 
reason  why.  But  his  opinion  is  too  con- 
stant, and  I  did  not  trust  it  about  the 
mignonette.  I  insisted,  instead,  that  every 
morning  the  fallen  cedar  spines  should  be 
picked  out  of  it,  and  the  earth  freshly  stirred 
about  the  roots ;  and  I  have  a  better  patch 
of  mignonette  under  my  conifer  than  can  be 
produced  anywhere  else  in  the  garden.  I 
am  sure  that  the  shade  of  a  conifer  is  no  less 
beneficial  than  any  other  kind  of  shade,  ex- 
cept that  there  is  never  enough  of  it ;  nor 
can  I  accept  the  theory  that  there  is  any- 
thing poisonous  in  the  spines.  They  only 
pack  and  only  lie  very  closely  together, 
never  blown  about  like  leaves,  and  so  keep 
away  the  air  and  light,  and  if  you  happen  to 
have  the  use  of  twenty  or  thirty  brown 
fingers  to  pick  them  out,  there  is  no  reason 
why  you  cannot  produce  quantities  of  things 


140       The  Crow's-Nest 

beside  mignonette  under  a  conifer.  Do  any- 
thing ?  I  do  not  know  a  more  able-bodied 
or  hard-working  flower  on  the  shelf. 

A  thing  like  that  offers  one  for  some  time 
afterwards  a  valuable  handle  in  arguments. 

However  you  do  it,  there  is  no  more  deli- 
cious experience  in  life  than  to  put  some- 
thing beautiful  where  nothing  was  before,  I 
mean  in  any  suitable  empty  space.  I  have 
done  it;  I  have  had  the  consummation  of 
this  pleasure  for  a  fortnight.  There  was  no 
goldenrod  in  Simla  till  I  went  to  America 
and  got  it.  I  make  the  lofty  statement  with 
confidence,  but  subject  to  correction.  ,  Some 
one  may  have  thought  of  it  long  ago,  and 
may  be  able  to  confront  me  with  finer  plumes 
than  mine.  If  this  should  be  so,  I  shall 
accept  it  with  reluctance  and  mortification, 
and  hereby  promise  to  go  and  admire  the 
other  person's,  which  is  the  most  anybody 
can  do ;  but  my  pride  does  not  expect  such 
a  fall. 

It  is  the  Queen's  goldenrod,  not  the 
President's,  though  he  has  a  great  deal  of 
it   and   makes,    I    think,  rather  more   fuss 


The  Crow's-Nest        141 

about  it.  A  field  flower  of  generous  mind, 
it  ignores  the  political  line,  and  I  gathered 
the  seed  one  splendid  autumn  afternoon  in 
Canada ;  so  here  on  the  shelf  it  may  claim 
its  humble  part  in  the  Imperial  idea.  A 
friend  of  my  youth  lent  herself  to  the  pro- 
ject; she  took  me  in  her  father's  buggy, 
and  as  we  went  along  the  country  roads  I 
saw  again  in  the  light  of  a  long  absence,  the 
quiet  of  the  fields  and  the  broad  pebbled 
stretches  of  the  river,  and  the  bronze  and 
purple  of  the  untrimmed  woods  that  had 
always  been  for  me  the  margin  of  the 
thought  of  home.  The  quiet  of  after-har- 
vest held  it  all,  nothing  was  about  but  a 
chipmunk  that  ran  along  the  top  of  a  fence ; 
you  could  count  the  apples  in  the  orchards 
among  their  scanty  leaves  ;  it  was  time  to 
talk  and  to  remember.  And  so,  not  by 
anything  unusual  that  we  did  or  said,  but 
by  the  rare  and  beautiful  correspondence 
that  is  sometimes  to  be  felt  between  the 
sentiment  of  the  hour  and  the  hour  itself, 
this  afternoon  took  its  place  in  the  dateless 
calendar  of  the  heart  which  is  so  much  more 


142        The  Crow's-Nest 

valuable  a  reference  than  any  other.  What 
a  delight  it  is  when  old  forgotten  things 
construct  themselves  again  and  the  years 
gather  into  an  afternoon !  And  is  there 
any  such  curious  instance  of  real  usefulness 
for  hidden  treasure  in  the  attic  ? 

We  found  masses  of  goldenrod,  all  dry 
and  scattering,  principally  along  the  railway 
embankment,  which  we  took  for  a  good 
omen  that  it  would  be  a  travelling  flower ; 
and  in  the  fulness  of  time  it  was  given  to 
Atma  with  instructions.  His  excitement 
was  even  greater  than  mine,  he  nursed  it 
tenderly,  but  it  needed  no  nursing.  It 
came  up  in  thousands  delighted  with  itself 
and  the  new  climate,  overrunning  its  boxes 
so  that  Atma  pointed  to  it  like  a  proud 
father.  Then  we  planted  it  out  along  the 
paling  behind  the  coreopsis,  and  it  immedi- 
ately —  that  is  to  say  in  three  months'  time 
—  grew  to  be  five  feet  high,  with  the  most 
thick  and  lovely  yellow  sprays,  which  have 
been  waving  there  against  the  fir-trees,  as 
I  said  before,  for  the  last  fortnight.  It  has 
quite  lost  the  way  to  its  proper  season ;  at 


The  Crow's-Nest       143 

home  it  blossoms  in  September  and  this  is 
only  June,  —  but  it  appears  to  be  rather 
the  better  than  the  worse  for  that,  though 
it  does  seem  to  look  about,  as  the  Princess 
said  when  I  sent  her  some,  for  the  red  sumach 
which  is  its  friend  and  companion  at  home. 
It  is  itself  like  a  little  fir-tree  with  flat 
spreading  branches  of  blossom,  especially 
when  it  stands  in  groups  as  they  do,  and 
the  sun  slants  upon  it  giving  the  sprays  an 
edge  of  brighter  gold  so  that  it  is  the  most 
luminous  thing  in  the  garden.  And  the 
warm  scent  of  it,  holding  something  so  far 
beyond  itself  and  India,  something  essential, 
impregnated  with  the  solace  that  one's  youth 
and  its  affections  are  not  lost,  but  only  on 
the  other  side  of  the  world ! 

Another  delightful  thing  about  the 
goldenrod  is  the  way  the  bees  and  butter- 
flies instantly  found  it  out.  The  sprays 
are  dotted  with  them  all  day  long,  swaying 
and  dipping  with  the  weight  of  the  little 
greedy  bodies  ;  their  hum  of  content  stands 
in  the  air  with  the  warm  and  comfortable 
scent.     "  This  is  good  fare  "  they  seem  to 


144       The  Crow's-Nest 

say.  "  There  are  some  things  they  make 
better  in  America."  I  had  never  before 
done  anything  for  a  bee  or  a  butterfly,  it  is 
not  really  so  easy,  and  I  would  not  Have 
believed  there  was  such  pleasure  in  it.  "  he 
fleur  qui  vole "  —  is  not  that  charming  of 
M.  Bourget  ? 

I  suppose  it  argues  a  very  empty  plane 
of  life,  but  these  little  creatures  have  an 
immense  power  of  entertaining  a  person 
who  spends  day  after  day  in  the  theatre 
of  their  activities.  I  am  reminded  that 
here  in  India  one  ought  to  have  marvellous 
tales  to  tell  of  them,  only  Simla  is  not  really 
India,  but  a  little  bit  of  England  with  an 
Adirondack  climate  and  the  "  insect  belt " 
of  Central  Asia ;  and  things  are  not  so 
wonderful  here  as  you  would  think  to  look 
at  us  on  the  map.  Scorpions  and  centipedes 
do  come  up  from  the  plains  and  live  in  the 
cracks  of  the  wall  whence  they  crawl  out  to 
be  despatched  when  the  first  fires  are  lighted, 
but  they  have  not  the  venom  of  those  below. 
Scorpions  Atma  will  take  hold  of  by  the 
poison  bags  at  the  end  of  their   tails,  and 


The  Crow's-Nest       145 

hold  up  in  the  air  dangling  and  waving  their 
arms ;  and  nobody  even  screams  at  a  centi- 
pede. Millipedes  which  look  much  more 
ferocious  .but  are  really  quite  harmless  often 
run  like  little  express  trains  across  your 
bath-room  walls,  and  very  large,  black,  gar- 
den spiders  also  come  there  to  enjoy  the 
damp.  They  enjoy  the  damp,  but  what 
they  really  like  is  to  get  into  the  muslin 
curtain  over  the  window  and  curl  up  and 
die.  The  first  time  I  saw  one  of  them  in 
the  folds  of  the  curtain  I  thought  it  would 
be  more  comfortable  in  the  garden  and 
approached  it  with  caution  and  a  towel,  to 
put  it  out.  Then  I  perceived  from  its  be- 
haviour—  it  did  not  try  to  run  away,  but  just 
drew  its  legs  a  little  closer  under  it,  as  you 
or  I  would  do  if  we  absolutely  did  n't  care 
what  happened  so  long  as  we  were  left  in 
peace  —  that  it  had  come  there  on  purpose, 
being  aware  of  its  approaching  end.  I  de- 
cided that  the  last  moments  of  even  a  spider 
should  be  respected,  but  every  day  I  shook 
the  curtain  and  he  drew  his  legs  together 
a  little  more  feebly  than  the  day  before, 
10 


146       The  Crow's-Nest 

until  at  last  he  dropped  out,  the  shell  of 
a  spider,  comfortably  and  completely  dead. 
I  admired  his  expiring,  it  was  business-like 
and  methodical,  the  thing  he  had  next  to  do, 
and  he  was  so  intent  upon  it,  not  in  any  way 
to  be  disturbed  or  distracted,  asking  no 
question  of  the  purposes  of  nature,  simply 
carrying  them  out.     One  might  moralize. 

Talking  of  spiders  I  have  just  seen  a  fly 
catch  one.  It  was,  of  course,  an  ichneumon 
fly.  One  has  many  times  heard  of  his  habit 
of  pouncing  upon  his  racial  enemy,  punctur- 
ing and  paralyzing  him  and  finally  carrying 
him  oflF,  walling  him  up  and  laying  an  egg 
in  him,  out  of  which  comes  a  young  ichneu- 
mon to  feed  upon  his  helpless  vitals  ;  but 
one  does  not  often  see  the  tragedy  in  the 
air.  He  held  his  fat  prey  quite  firmly  in 
his  merciless  jaws  and  he  went  with  entrain, 
the  villain !  The  victim  spider  and  the 
assassin  fly !     One  might  moralize  again. 

It  is  hotter  than  ever,  and  the  sunlight 
under  the  ground-glass  bell  has  a  factitious 
look,  as  if  we  had  here  a  comedy  with  a 
scene  of  summer.     A  hawk-moth  darts  like 


The  Crow's-Nest       147 

a  hummingbird  in  and  out  of  the  honey- 
suckle, and  a  very  fine  rose-chafer  all  in 
green  and  gold  paces  across  this  paragraph. 
I  believe  there  are  more  rose-chafers  this 
year  than  there  ought  to  be,  and  Atma  has 
a  heavy  bill  against  them  in  every  stage  of 
their  existence,  but  they  are  such  attractive 
depredators.  When  I  find  one  making 
himself  comfortable  in  the  heart  of  a  La 
France,  I  know  very  well  that  on  account 
of  the  white  grub  he  was  once  and  the 
many  white  grubs  he  will  be  again  I  ought 
to  kill  him  and  think  no  more  about  it ; 
but  one  hesitates  to  send  a  creature  out  of 
the  world  who  exercises  such  good  taste 
when  he  is  in  it.  I  know  it  is  quite  too 
foolish  to  write,  but  the  extent  of  my  ven- 
geance upon  such  a  one  is  only  to  put  him 
into  a  common  rose. 

The  birds  are  silent ;  the  butterflies  bask 
on  the  gravel  like  little  ships  with  big  sails. 
Even  ■  the  lizards  have  sought  temporary 
retirement  between  the  flower-pots.  I  am 
the  only  person  who  is  denied  her  natural 
shelter    and    compelled     to    resort    to    an 


148       The  Crow's-Nest 

umbrella.  Tiglath-Pileser  said  the  other 
day  that  he  thought  it  was  quite  time  I 
made  some  acknowledgment  of  the  good  it 
was  doing  me.  It  is  doing  me  good  —  of 
course.  But  what  strikes  me  most  about 
it  is  the  wonderful  patience  and  fortitude 
people  can  display  in  having  good  done  to 
them. 


Chapter     XIII 


I  HAVE  had  a  morning  of  domestic 
details  with  the  Average  Woman.  I 
don't  quite  know  whether  one  ought 
to  write  about  such  things,  or  whether 
one  ought  to  draw  a  veil ;  I  have  not  yet 
formed  a  precise  opinion  as  to  the  function 
of  the  commonplace  In  matter  intended  for 
publication.  But  surely  no  one  should  scorn 
domestic  details,  which  make  our  univer- 
sal background  and  mainstay  of  existence. 
Theories  and  abstractions  serve  to  adorn  It 
and  to  give  us  a  notion  of  ourselves :  but 
we  keep  them  mostly  for  lectures  and  ser- 
mons, the  monthly  reviews,  the  original 
young  man  who  comes  to  tea.  All  would 
be  glad  to  shine  at  odd  times,  but  the  most 
luminous  demonstration  may  very  probably 
be  based  upon  a  hatred  of  cold  potatoes  and 
a  preference  for  cotton  sheets.  And  of 
course  no  one  would  dare  to  scorn  the  aver- 
age woman ;  she  is  the  backbone  of  society. 


150        The  Crow's-Nest 

Personally  I  admire  her  very  humbly,  and 
respect  her  very  truly.  For  many  of  us,  to 
become  an  average  woman  is  an  ambition. 
I  think  I  will  go  on. 

Besides,  Thalia  interrupted  us,  and  Thalia 
will  always  lend  herself  to  a  chapter. 

The  Average  Woman  is  not  affectionate 
but  she  is  solicitous,  and  there  was  the  con- 
sideration of  my  original  situation  and  my 
tiresome  health.  Then  she  perceived  that 
I  had  a  garden  and  that  it  was  a  pretty  gar- 
den. I  said,  indifferently,  that  people  thought 
so ;  I  knew  it  was  a  subject  she  would  not 
pursue  unless  she  were  very  much  encour- 
aged, and  there  was  no  reason  at  all  why  she 
should  pursue  it ;  she  would  always  be  a 
visitor  in  such  a  place,  whereas  there  were 
many  matters  which  she  could  treat  with 
familiar  intelligence.  I  was  quite  right ;  she 
wandered  at  once  into  tins  of  white  enamel, 
where  it  seemed  she  had  already  spent  sev- 
eral industrious  hours.  We  sympathized 
deeply  over  the  extent  to  which  domestic 
India  was  necessarily  enamelled,  though  I 
saw  a  look  of  criticism  cross  her  face  when 


The  Crow's-Nest       151 

I  announced  that  I  hoped  one  day  to  be 
rich  enough  not  to  possess  a  single  article 
painted  in  that  way  —  not  a  chair,  not  a 
table.  I  think  she  considered  my  declara- 
tion too  impassioned,  but  she  did  not  dissent 
from  it.  That  is  a  circumstance  one  notes 
about  the  Average  Woman :  she  never  dis- 
sents from  anything.  She  never  will  be 
drawn  into  an  argument.  One  could  make 
the  most  wild  and  whirling  statement  to  her, 
if  one  felt  inclined,  and  it  is  as  likely  as  not 
that  she  would  say  "  Yes  indeed,"  or  "  I 
think  so  too,"  and  after  a  little  pause  of 
politeness  go  on  to  talk  about  something 
else.  I  can't  imagine  why  one  never  does 
feel  inclined. 

We  continued  to  discuss  interior  decora- 
tion, and  I  learned  that  she  was  preparing  a 
hearth  seat  for  her  drawing-room,  one  of 
those  low  square  arrangements  projecting 
into  the  room  before  the  fire,  upon  which 
two  ladies  may  sit  before  dinner  and  imag- 
ine they  look  picturesque,  while  the  rest  of 
the  assembled  guests,  from  whom  they  quite 
cut  off  the  cheerful   blaze,  wonder  whether 


152        The  Crow's-Nest 

they  do.  The  Average  Woman  declared 
that  she  could  no  longer  live  without  one. 

"  As  time  goes  on  one  notices  that  fewer 
and  fewer  average  women  can,"  I  observed 
absently,  and  hastily  added,  "I  mean,  you 
know,  that  of  course  very  portly  ladies  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  j^(?,"  said  she.  "  No,  of  course 
not." 

"  So  long,"  I  went  on,  pursuing  the  same 
train  of  thought,  "  as  one  can  sit  down  read- 
ily upon  a  hearth  seat,  and  especially  so  long 
as  one  can  clasp  one's  knees  upon  it,  one 
is  not  even  middle-aged.  To  clasp  one's 
knees  is  really  to  hug  one's  youth." 

"  I  had  such  a  pretty  one  in  Calcutta," 
said  the  Average  Woman.  "So  cosy  it 
looked.     Everybody  admired  it." 

"  But  in  Calcutta,"  I  exclaimed  with  as- 
tonishment, "  it  is  always  so  hot  —  and  there 
are  no  fireplaces." 

"  Oh,  that  did  n't  matter,"  replied  she  tri- 
umphantly, "  I  draped  the  mantelpiece. 
It  looked  just  as  well."  And  yet  there  are 
people  who  say  that  the  Average  Woman 
has  no  imagination. 


The  Crow's-Nest       153 

"Talking  of  age,"  she  continued,  "how 
old  do  you  suppose  Mrs. is  ?  Some- 
body at  tiffin  yesterday  who  knew  the  family 
declared  that  she  could  not  be  a  day  under 
thirty-seven.  I  should  not  give  her  more 
than  thirty-five  myself.  My  husband  says 
thirty-two." 

"About  a  person's  age,"  I  said,  "what 
can  another  person's  husband  know?" 

"  What  should  you  say  ?  "  she  insisted.  I 
am  sorry  to  have  to  underline  so  much,  but 
you  know  how  the  average  woman  talks  in 
italics.  It  is  as  if  she  wished  to  make  up  in 
emphasis  —  but  I  will  not  finish  that  good- 
natured  sentence. 

"  Oh,"    said     I,    "  you    cannot    measure 

Mrs. 's  age  in  years  !     She  is  as  old 

as  Queen  Elizabeth  and  as  young  as  the  day 
before  yesterday.  Parts  of  her  date  from 
the  Restoration  and  parts  from  the  advent 
of  M.  Max  Nordau  —  "  At  that  moment 
Thalia  arrived.  "  And  that  is  the  age  of  all 
the  world,"  I  finished. 

"  We  were  wondering,"  said  the  Average 
Woman,  "  how  old  Mrs. is." 


154       The  Crow's-Nest 

"  Tou  were  wondering,"  I  corrected  her. 

"  What  does  it  matter  ?  "  said  ThaHa, 
which  was  precisely  what  I  should  have 
expected  her  to  say.  What  does  it  matter? 
Why  should  the  average  woman  excite  her- 
self so  greatly  about  this  particularly  small 
thing?  How  does  it  bear  upon  the  interest 
or  the  attractiveness  or  the  value  of  any 
woman  to  know  precisely  how  many  years 
she  counts  between  thirty  and  forty,  at  all 
events  to  another  of  her  sex?  Yet  to  the 
average  woman  it  seems  to  be  the  all-import- 
ant fact,  the  first  thing  she  must  know. 
She  is  enrag'ee  to  find  it  out,  she  will  make 
the  most  cunning  enquiries  and  take  the 
most  subtle  means.  Much  as  I  appreciate 
the  average  woman,  I  have  in  this  respect  no 
patience  with  her.  It  is  as  if  she  would 
measure  the  pretensions  of  all  others  by 
recognized  rule  of  thumb  with  a  view  to  dis- 
covering the  surplus  claim  and  properly 
scoring  it  down.  It  is  surely  a  survival  from 
days  when  we  were  much  more  feminine 
than  we  are  now ;  but  it  is  still  very  gen- 
eral, even  among  married  ladies,  for  whom. 


The  Crow's-Nest       155 

really,  the  question  might  have  an  exhausted 
interest. 

"  What  does  it  matter  ?  "  said  Thalia.  "  I 
see  your  fuchsias,  like  me,  have  taken  ad- 
vantage of  a  fine  day  to  come  out.  What  a 
lot  you  've  got !  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  without  enthusiasm,  "  they 
were  here  when  we  came." 

"  Oh,  don't  you  like  them  ?  "  exclaimed 
the  Average  Woman,  "  I  think  the  fuchsia 
such  a  graceful,  pretty  flower." 

"  It  is  graceful  and  it  is  pretty,"  I  assented. 
There  are  any  number  of  fuchsias,  as  Thalia 
said,  standing  in  rows  along  the  paling  under 
the  potato-creeper ;  the  last  occupant  must 
have  adored  them.  They  remain  precisely 
in  the  pots  in  which  they  were  originally 
cherished.  Knowing  that  the  first  thing  I  do 
for  a  flower  I  like  is  to  put  it  in  the  ground 
where  it  has  room  to  move  its  feet  and  stir 
about  at  night,  and  take  its  share  in  the  joys 
of  the  community,  Tiglath-Pileser  says  com- 
passionately of  the  fuchsia,  "It  is  permitted  to 
occupy  a  pot ;  "  but  I  notice  that  he  does  not 
select  it  for  his  button-hole  notwithstanding. 


156       The  Crow's-Nest 

Thalia  looked  at  me  suspiciously.  "  What 
have  you  got  against  it  ?  "  she  demanded,  and 
the  Average  Woman  chorussed,  "  Now  tell 
us." 

I  fixed  a  fuchsia  sternly  with  my  eye. 
"  It 's  an  affected  thing,"  I  said.  "  Always 
looking  down.  I  think  modesty  can  be  an 
overrated  virtue  in  a  flower.  It  is  also  like 
a  ballet-dancer,  flaunting  short  petticoats, 
which  does  n't  go  with  modesty  at  all.  I 
like  a  flower  to  be  sincere ;  there  is  no  heart, 
no  affection,  no  sentiment  about  a  fuchsia." 

Thalia  listened  to  this  diatribe  with  her 
head  a  little  on  one  side. 

"  You  are  full  of  prejudices,"  said  she, 
"  but  there  is  something  in  this  one.  No- 
body could  say  *  My  love  is  like  a  fuchsia.'  " 

"  It  depends,"  I  said ;  "  there  are  ladies 
not  a  hundred  miles  from  here  who  thrill 
when  they  are  told  that  they  walk  Hke  the 
partridge  and  shine  like  the  moon.  I 
should  n't  care  about  it  myself." 

"  No,  indeed,"  said  the  Average  Woman. 
"That  bit  beyond  the  mignonette  seems 
rather  empty.  What  are  you  going  to  put 
in  there?" 


The  Crow's-Nest       157 

"  Oh,  nothing,"  I  said. 

"  I  don't  know,"  remarked  Thalia  com- 
batively, "  when  there  are  so  many  beautiful 
things  in  the  world,  why  you  should  dis- 
criminate in  favour  of  nothing." 

"  Yes,  why  ?  "  said  the  Average  Woman. 

"  Well,"  I  replied  defiantly,  "  that 's  my 
spare  bedroom.  You  've  got  to  have  some- 
where  to  put  people.  I  don't  like  the 
feeling  that  every  border  is  fully  occupied 
and  not  a  square  inch  available  for  any  one 
coming  up  late  in  the  season." 

You  can  see  that  Thalia  considers  that 
while  we  are  respected  for  our  virtues  our 
weaknesses  enable  us  to  enjoy  ourselves. 
She  accepts  them  as  an  integral  and  inten- 
tional part  of  us  and  from  some  of  them  she 
even  extracts  a  contemplative  pleasure.  The 
Average  Woman  looks  down  upon  such 
things  and  I  did  not  dare  to  encounter  her 
glance  of  reserved  misunderstanding. 

Thalia  smiled.  I  felt  warmed  and  ap- 
proved. "Alas  !  "  said  she,  "my  garden  is 
all  spare  bedrooms."  She  lives,  poor  dear, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Jakko  and  has  to 


158       The  Crow's-Nest 

wait   till   September  for    her   summer.     "  I 
see  you  keep  it  aired  and  ready." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Atma  had  freshly 
turned  the  earth.  I  hold  to  that  in  the 
garden ;  it  seems  to  me  a  parallel  to  good 
housekeeping.  The  new-dug  mould  makes 
a  most  enhancing  background ;  and  an 
empty  bed,  if  it  is  only  freshly  made,  offers 
the  mind  as  much  pleasure  as  a  gay  parterre. 
It  is  the  sense,  I  suppose,  of  effort  expended 
and  care  taken,  and  above  all  it  is  a  stretch 
of  the  possible,  a  vista  beyond  the  realized 
present  which  is  as  valuable  in  a  garden  as 
it  is  in  life.  Oh  no,  not  as  valuable.  In 
life  it  is  the  most  precious  thing,  and  it  is 
sparingly  accorded.  Thalia  has  it,  I  know, 
but  I  looked  at  the  Average  Woman  in 
doubt.  Thalia,  whatever  else  she  does,  will 
have  high  comedy  always  for  her  portion, 
and  who  can  tell  in  what  scenes  she  will 
play  or  at  what  premieres  she  will  assist? 
But  the  Average  Woman,  —  can  one  not 
guess  at  the  end  of  ten  years  what  she  will 
be  talking  about,  what  she  will  have  experi- 
enced, what  she  will  have  done  ?     I  looked 


The  Crow's-Nest       159 

at  the  Average  Woman  and  wondered.  She 
was  explaining  to  Thalia  the  qualities  of 
milk  tea.  I  decided  that  she  was  probably 
happier  than  Thalia,  and  that  there  was  no 
need  whatever  to  be  sorry  for  her.  She 
stayed  a  long  time ;  I  think  she  enjoyed 
herself;  and  when  she  went  away  of  course 
we  talked  about  her. 

We  spoke  in  a  vein  of  criticism,  and  I 
was  surprised  to  learn  that  the  thing  about 
the  Average  Woman  to  which  Thalia  took 
most  exception  was  her  husband.  I  had 
always  found  the  poor  patient  creatures  en- 
tirely supportable,  and  I  said  so.  "  Oh, 
yes,"  replied  Thalia  impatiently,  "  in  them- 
selves they  're  well  enough.  But  did  n't  you 
hear  her  ?  *  George  adores  you  in  "  Lady 
Thermidore."  '     Now  that  annoys  me." 

"Does  it?"  said  I.  "Why  shouldn't 
George  adore  you  in  Lady  I'hermidore  if 
he  wants  to,  especially  if  he  tells  his  wife  ?  " 

"  That 's  exactly  it,"  said  Thalia.  "  If  he 
really  did  he  wouldn't  tell  her.  But  he 
does  n't.  She  just  says  so  in  order  to  give 
herself  the  pleasure  of  imagining  that  I  am 


i6o       The  Crow's-Nest 

charmed  to  believe  that  George  —  her 
George  —  " 

"  I  see,"  I  said,  sympathetically. 

"  They  are  always  offering  their  husbands 
up  to  me  like  that,"  continued  Thalia, 
gloomily.  "  They  expect  me,  I  suppose,  to 
blush  and  simper.  As  if  I  had  n't  a  very 
much  better  one  of  my  own ! " 

"  They  think  it  the  highest  compliment 
they  can  pay  you." 

"Precisely.  That's  what  is  so  objection- 
able.    And  besides  it 's  a  mistake." 

"  I  shall  never  tell  you  that  Tiglath-Pileser 
adores  you,"  I  stated. 

"  My  dear,  I  have  known  it  for  ages ! " 
said  Thalia,  en  se  sauvant,  as  they  do  in 
French  novels. 

Perhaps  the  Average  Woman  is  a  little  tire- 
some about  her  husband.  She  is  generally 
charged  with  quoting  him  overmuch.  I 
don't  think  that ;  his  opinions  are  often  use- 
ful and  nearly  always  sensible,  but  she  cer- 
tainly assumes  a  far  too  general  interest  for 
him  as  a  subject  upon  which  to  dwell  for 
long  periods.     Average  wives  of  officials  are 


The  Crow's-Nest      i6i 

much  more  distressingly  affected  in  this  way 
than  other  ladies  are;  it  is  quite  a  local 
peculiarity  of  bureaucratic  centres.  They 
cherish  the  delusion,  I  suppose,  that  in  some 
degree  they  advance  the  interests  of  these 
unfortunate  men  by  a  perpetual  public  atti- 
tude of  adoration,  but  I  cannot  believe  it  is 
altogether  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  I  am 
convinced  that  the  average  official  husband 
himself  would  find  too  much  zeal  in  the 
recounting  of  his  following  remarkable  traits. 
His  obstinate  and  absurd  devotion  to  duty. 
"  In  my  husband  the  Queen  has  a  good  bar- 
gain !  "  His  remarkable  youth  for  the  post 
he  holds,  —  I  remember  a  case  where  my 
budding  affection  for  the  wife  of  an  Assist- 
ant Secretary  was  entirely  checked  by  this 
circumstance.  The  compliments  paid  him 
by  his  official  superiors,  those  endless  com- 
pliments. And  more  than  anything  perhaps, 
his  extraordinary  and  deplorable  indifference 
to  society.  "  I  simply  canwo/  get  my  hus- 
band out ;  I  am  positively  ashamed  of 
making  excuses  for  him."  When  her  hus- 
band is  served  up  to  me  in  this  guise  I  feel 
II 


1 62        The  Crow's-Nest 

my  indignation  rising  out  of  all  proportion 
to  its  subject,  always  an  annoying  experience. 
Why  should  I  be  expected  to  accept  his 
foolish  idea  that  he  is  superior  to  society, 
and  admire  it  ?  Why  should  I  be  assumed 
to  observe  with  interest  whether  he  comes 
out ;  why  indeed,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
should  he  not  eternally  stay  in  ? 

It  comes  to  this  that  one  positively  ad- 
mires the  woman  who  has  the  reticence  to 
let  her  husband  make  his  own  reputation. 

What  offends  one,  I  suppose,  is  the  lack 
of  sincerity.  A  very  different  case  is  that 
of  the  simple  soul  who  says,  "  Tom  will  not 
allow  me  to  have  it  in  the  house,"  or  "Jim 
absolutely  refuses  to  let  me  know  her." 
One  hears  that  with  the  warm  thrill  of 
mutual  bondage;  one  has  one's  parallel 
ready  —  the  tyranny  I  could  relate  of 
Tiglath-Pileser !  The  note  of  grievance  is 
primitive  and  natural ;  but  the  woman  who 
butters  her  husband  in  friendly  council, 
what  excuse  has  she? 


Chapter    XIV 


THE  rains  have  come.  They  were 
due  on  the  fifteenth  of  June 
and  they  are  late ;  this  is  the 
twentieth.  The  whole  of  yester- 
day afternoon  we  could  see  them  beating  up 
the  valleys,  and  punctually  at  midnight  they 
arrived,  firing  their  own  salute  with  a  great 
clap  of  thunder  and  a  volley  on  the  roof — it 
is  a  galvanized  roof —  that  left  no  room  for 
doubt.  You  will  notice  that  it  is  the  rains 
that  have  come  and  not  the  rain;  there  is 
more  difference  than  you  would  imagine 
between  water  and  water.  The  rain  is  a 
gentle  thing  and  descends  in  England ;  the 
rains  are  untamed,  torrential,  and  visit  parts 
of  the  East.  They  come  to  stay  ;  for  three 
good  months  they  are  with  us,  pelting  the 
garden,  beating  at  the  panes.  It  would  be 
difficult  for  persons  living  in  the  temperate 
zone  to  conceive  how  wet,  during  this 
period,  our  circumstances  are. 


164       The  Crow's-Nest 

One  always  hears  them  burst  with  a  feel- 
ing of  apprehension ;  it  is  such  a  violent 
movement  of  nature,  potential  of  damage, 
certain  of  change;  and  life  is  faced  next 
morning  at  breakfast  with  a  gloom  which  is 
not  assumed.  A  dripping  dulness  varied  by- 
deluges,  that  is  the  prospect  for  the  next 
ninety  days.  The  emotions  of  one  who  will 
be  expected  to  support  it  under  an  umbrella, 
with  the  further  protection  of  a  conifer  only, 
are  offered,  please,  to  your  kind  considera- 
tion. I  dreamed  as  the  night  wore  on  of 
shipwreck  in  a  sea  of  mountains  on  a  cane 
chair,  and  when  I  awoke,  salvaged  in  my 
bed,  it  was  raining  as  hard  as  ever. 

At  breakfast  Tiglath-Pileser  said,  uneasily, 
that  it  would  probably  clear  up  in  half  an 
hour.  "It  simply  can't  go  on  like  this," 
remarked  Thisbe,  and  I  saw  that  they  were 
thinking  of  me,  under  the  conifer.  When 
you  suspect  commiseration  the  thing  to  do 
is  to  enhance  it.  "  Clear  up  ?  "  said  I  with 
indifference.  "  Why  should  it  clear  up  ?  It 
has  only  just  begun." 

"  It  is  all  very  well  to  sit  out  in  the  rain 


The  Crow's-Nest        165 

in  England,"  said  Thisbe;  "  but  this  is  quite 
a  different  thing." 

"Oh  dear,  no,"  said  I.  "  There  is  only 
a  little  more  of  it." 

"  Well,  if  it  continues  to  pelt  like  this,  of 
course — "began  Tiglath-Pileser. 

"  I  shall  take  the  old  green  gamp,"  I  put 
in,  "  it 's  the  biggest." 

They  glanced  at  each  other ;  I  perceived 
the  glance  though  my  attention  was  sup- 
posed to  be  given  to  a  curried  egg.  A  word 
of  petition  would  have  installed  me  at  once 
by  the  drawing-room  fire  ;  but  a  commanding 
pride  rose  up  in  me  and  forbade  the  word. 
Tiglath-Pileser,  who  holds  to  carrying  out 
a  system  thoroughly,  asked  me  thought- 
fully if  I  would  n't  have  a  little  marmalade 
with  my  egg ;  and  the  matter  dropped. 

Half  an  hour  afterwards  I  was  encamped 
under  the  pencil  cedar  and  the  old  green 
umbrella.  You  cannot  screen  your  whole 
person  in  a  long  chair  with  these  two  things, 
and  I  added  to  myself  a  water-proof  sheet. 
It  was  a  magnificent  moment.  The  rain  was 
coming  down  straight  and  thick  with  a  loud. 


1 66       The  Crow's-Nest 

steady  drum,  small  flat  puddles  were  dancing 
all  about  me,  and  brooks  were  running  un- 
der my  chair  —  I  sat  calm  and  regardless.  I 
was  really  quite  dry  and  not  nearly  so  un- 
comfortable as  I  looked ;  but  I  presented  a 
spectacle  of  misery  that  afforded  me  a  subtle 
joy.  The  only  drawback  was  that  there  was 
nobody  to  witness  it ;  Thisbe  and  Tiglath- 
Pileser  seemed  by  common  consent  to  with- 
draw themselves  to  the  back  parts.  Only 
Dumboo  circulated  disconsolately  about  the 
verandah,  with  the  heavy  knowledge  that 
now  without  doubt  it  was  proved  that  the 
mistress  was  mad ;  and  I  wished  to  be 
thought  indifferent  only,  not  insane.  He 
seemed  to  think  that  I  required  surveillance, 
and  kept  an  anxious  eye  upon  me  until  I 
sent  him  about  his  business. 

It  was  a  day  of  great  affairs  in  the  garden; 
I  could  hear  them  going  on  all  round  me. 
To  everybody  there  it  meant  a  radical  change 
of  housekeeping ;  some  families  were  coming 
out  and  some  going  in,  some  moving  up  and 
some  down,  while  others  would  depart,  al- 
most at  once,  for  the  season.     No  wonder 


The  Crow's-Nest        167 

they  all  talked  at  once  in  an  excited  mur- 
mur under  the  rain.  I  could  hear  the 
murmur,  but  I  could  not  distinguish  the 
voices ;  between  the  rain  and  the  umbrella, 
most  of  the  garden  was  hidden  from  me,  and 
it  is  a  curious  fact  that  if  you  cannot  see  a 
flower  you  cannot  hear  what  it  says.  Only 
the  pansy  beds  came  within  eyesight  and 
ear-shot,  and  there  I  could  see  that  conster- 
nation and  confusion  reigned.  It  is  the 
beginning  of  the  end  for  the  pansies ;  they 
love  rain  in  watering-pots,  morning  and 
evening,  and  a  bright  sun  all  day,  and 
this  downpour  disconcerts  them  altogether. 
They  cry  out,  every  one  of  them,  against 
the  waste  and  improvidence  of  it.  For  an- 
other month  they  will  go  on  opening  fresh 
buds  and  uttering  fresh  protests,  plainly  dis- 
puting among  themselves  whether,  under 
such  adverse  circumstances,  life  is  worth  liv- 
ing ;  and  one  sad  day  I  shall  find  that  they 
have  decided  it  is  not.  I  am  always  sorry 
to  see  the  last  pansy  leave  the  garden  ;  it 
goes  with  such  regret. 

I  intended  to  be  undisturbed  and  normal, 


1 68        The  Crow's-Nest 

and  to  accomplish  pages;  but  I  find  that 
you  cannot  think  in  heavy  rain.  It  is  too 
fierce,  too  attacking.  You  know  that  it  will 
not  do  you  any  harm,  but  your  nerves  are 
not  convinced;  you  can  only  wait  in  a  kind 
of  physical  suspense,  like  the  cows  in  the 
fields,  whose  single  idea  I  am  sure  is,  "  How 
soon  will  it  be  over?" 

Well,  I  knew  it  would  not  be  over  for 
ninety  days,  and  already  there  were  drops 
on  the  inside  of  the  green  umbrella.  I  was 
seriously  weighing  the  situation  when  Tig- 
lath- Pileser  appeared  upon  the  verandah. 
He  had  come  out  to  say  that  the  rains  al- 
ways broke  with  thunder-storms,  that  this 
was  practically  a  thunder-storm,  and  that  he 
considered  my  situation,  under  the  tallest 
tree  in  the  neighbourhood,  too  exposed. 
He  had  to  think  of  something;  that  was 
what  he  thought  of,  and  I  was  pleased  to 
find  it  convincing.  "  Shall  I  take  it  for 
granted,"  I  inquired  blandly,  "  whenever  it 
comes  down  in  bucketfuls  like  this,  that 
there  is  thunder  in  the  air,  and  come  in  ?  " 
and  Tiglath-Pileser  said  that  he  thought  it 
would  be  as  well. 


The  Crow's-Nest        169 

So  I  am  in  —  in  to  spend  the  day.  It 
does  not  sound  in  any  way  remarkable, 
which  shows  how  entirely  custom  is  our 
measure  for  the  significance  of  things.  It  is 
really  an  excursion  into  the  known  and 
familiar,  become  unusual  and  exciting  by  ban- 
ishment ;  and  it  brings  one  fresh  sense  of 
how  easy  it  would  be  to  make  life  —  almost 
any  —  vivid  and  interesting  by  a  discreet  and 
careful  use  of  abstinence.  I  am  not  prais- 
ing the  pleasures  of  the  anchorite ;  his  is  an 
undiscriminating  experience  upon  quite  a 
lower  plane  ;  but,  oh,  restraint,  the  discipline 
of  the  greedy  instinct,  how  it  brings  out  the 
colours  of  life  !  To  have  learnt  this  lesson 
only  makes  it  worth  while  to  have  come 
through  the  world.  People  to  whom  a  roof 
is  normal  have  never,  I  venture  to  say, 
known  the  sense  of  shelter  I  feel  to-day,  the 
full  enclosure  of  the  four  walls,  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  dry  floor.  The  hill-man 
who  watches  the  long  slant  of  the  rain  into 
the  valley  from  a  cave  out  there  on  the  road 
to  Thibet,  where  a  little  heap  of  cold  embers 
often  tell  of  such  a  one's  refuging,  may  offer 


170       The  Crow's-Nest 

me  intelligent  sympathy  —  I  should  criticise 
any  one  else's. 

Meanwhile  I  have  been  criticising  other 
things.  The  house  is  a  place  of  shelter; 
it  is  also  a  place  of  conjfinement,  and  there 
are  corners  where  the  blessed  air  does  not 
sufficiently  circulate.  This  as  an  abstraction 
is  generally  accepted,  but  unless  you  pass 
a  good  deal  of  time  out-of-doors  you  can 
never  know  it  as  a  fact.  It  is  not  perhaps 
the  happiest  result  of  living  in  the  open 
air  that  to  the  nose  thus  accustomed  there 
are  twice  as  many  smells  in  the  world  as 
there  were  before.  I  have  been  discovering 
them  in  various  places  this  morning,  here 
a  suggestion  of  kerosene,  there  a  flavour  of 
cheese,  in  another  spot  a  reminiscence  of 
Tiglath-Pileser's  pipe.  I  even  pretend  to 
know  that  it  was  his  meerschaum  and  not 
his  brier,  though  Thisbe  thinks  this  pre- 
posterous. Thisbe  thinks  me  preposterous 
altogether,  vainly  sniffing  for  the  odours 
which  oflfend  me,  and  begging  me  to  desist 
from  opening  windows  and  letting  in  the 
rain.      Dumboo,  more  practical,  goes  care- 


The  Crow's-Nest       171 

fully  round  after  me,  and  closes  each  in  turn 
as  soon  as  I  have  left  the  room,  with  an 
air  of  serious  perturbation,  —  who  can  be 
jewabdeh  —  answer-giving  —  for  the  acts  of 
a  mad  mistress  ?  I  have  finally  subsided 
as  near  as  possible  to  the  window  in  the 
breakfast-room,  with  the  garden  and  the 
rain  outside.  It  has  been  given  me  to  un- 
derstand that  I  am  to  have  a  present  shortly, 
and  I  may  choose  my  present.  For  some 
time  I  have  been  vainly  revolving  the  mat- 
ter ;  the  world  seems  so  full  of  desirable 
articles  that  one  does  not  want ;  but  here 
an  inspiration  visits  me  —  I  will  have  an- 
other window  in  the  breakfast-room.  There 
is  plenty  of  room  for  it,  nothing  but  a  wall 
in  the  way.  Where  this  blank  wall,  covered 
with  wall-paper,  now  blocks  the  vision,  an- 
other square  of  garden  shall  appear ;  it  will 
let  in  a  line  of  blue  hill,  most  of  the  pencil 
cedar,  a  corner  of  the  rose-bushes,  and  a 
whole  company  of  poppies  and  corn-bottles. 
A  carpenter  from  Jullunder  will  make  it 
in  a  week,  —  Jullunder  thrives  upon  the 
export  of  carpenters  to  the  hills,  —  and  it 


172        The  Crow's-Nest 

will  be  a  most  delicious  present,  giving  a 
pleasure  every  morning  freshly  new,  much 
better  than  anything  that  would  have  to  be 
locked  up  in  a  drawer.  Also,  when  we  go 
away  I  shall  be  able,  without  a  pang  of  self- 
sacrifice,  to  leave  it  behind  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  other  people,  which  is  quite  the 
most  pleasing  kind  of  benefit  to  confer. 

Very  heavily  it  descends,  this  first  burst 
of  the  rains.  The  garden  is  bowed  under 
it;  from  far  and  near  comes  the  sound  of 
rushing  water  down  the  khud-sides.  The 
great  valleys  beyond  the  paling  are  brimful 
of  grey,  impenetrable  vapour,  as  if  the  clouds, 
even  in  dissolving,  were  too  heavy  to  carry 
themselves.  From  my  asylum  nothing 
appears  to  stir  or  speak  except  the  rain. 
The  day  weeps  fast  and  stormily,  as  if 
night  might  fall  before  she  had  half  de- 
plored enough. 

It  would  be  dull  at  the  window  but 
for  the  discovery  I  have  made  in  the  banksia 
over  the  arched  trellis  which  stands,  for  no 
purpose  at  all,  across  the  garden  walk  that 
runs    round   the   roses.     Here    I    strongly 


The  Crow's-Nest        173 

suspect  the  brown  bird  has  an  establish- 
ment, and  a  sitting  hen.  So  long  as  I  my- 
self sat  in  the  garden  I  never  guessed  it,  he 
was  too  clever ;  but  he  did  not  dream,  I 
suppose,  that  I  would  take  to  spying  upon 
him  in  ambush  like  this,  and  from  here  his 
conduct  looks  most  husbandly.  The  brown 
bird  joined  us  one  afternoon  about  a  fort- 
night ago,  while  we  were  having  tea  on  the 
verandah.  He  perched  on  a  flower-pot, 
and  hinted,  in  the  most  engaging  way,  that 
the  ground  was  baked  and  worms  were 
scarce,  and  we  made  him  feel  so  welcome  to 
crumbs  that  he  has  constantly  dropped  in 
upon  us  since.  He  is  most  venturesome 
with  us  ;  he  will  run  under  our  chairs  and 
under  the  table,  and  he  loves  to  slip  in  and 
out  of  hiding  among  the  flower-pots.  He 
goes  with  little  leaps  and  bounds,  like  a 
squirrel ;  and  he  whistles  with  such  melody 
that  one  might  very  well  think  him  a  thrush. 
I  thought  him  a  thrush,  until  one  afternoon 
Tiglath-Pileser  said  aggressively,  "  I  don't 
believe  that  bird  is  a  thrush." 

«  Pray,  then,"  said  I,  "  what  is  he  ?  " 


174       The  Crow's-Nest 

"  He  belongs,  nevertheless,"  said  Tiglath- 
Pileser  judicially,  "  to  the  Passeres." 

"  If  I  asked  your  name,"  said  Delia,  who 
was  there,  "  I  should  not  be  grateful  to  be 
told  that  you  were  one  of  the  primates,"  and 
we  laughed  at  the  master  of  the  house. 

"  Wait  a  bit,"  said  he,  "  I  should  call  him 
a  robin." 

"  He 's  got  no  red  breast,"  I  brought 
forth,  out  of  the  depth  of  my  ignorance. 

"  He  has  a  reddish  spot  under  each  ear,** 
said  Tiglath-Pileser,  "  and  mark  how  his 
tail  turns  up." 

"  I  am  no  ornithologist,"  I  said.  ''  His 
tail  turns  up." 

"  How  little  one  realizes,"  quoth  Thisbe, 
pensively,  "  that  a  bird  has  ears." 

"  I  think,"  said  Tiglath-Pileser,  "  that  I 
can  decide  this  matter,"  and  disappeared 
into    the  house. 

"  He  has  gone  to  get  a  book,"  said 
Delia,  "  that  will  settle  yoUy  dear  lady, 
you  and  your  thrush,"  and  presently  he 
came  out  triumphant,  as  she  said,  with 
"Wanderings  of  a  Naturalist  in  India." 


The  Crow's-Nest       175 

"  *  Although  differing  altogether  in  the 
colour  of  its  plumage  from  the  European 
robin,' "  he  read  aloud,  "  *  there  is  great 
similarity  in  their  habits.  It  frisks  before 
the  door,  and  picks  up  crumbs,  jerking  its 
tail  as  it  hops  along.  How  often  have 
associations  of  home  been  brought  to  mind 
by  seeing  this  pretty  little  warbler  pursuing 
its  gambols  before  the  door  of  an  Eastern 
bungalow  1 '  " 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  not  often,  because  of 
course  we  did  n't  recognize  it,  but  in  future 
they  always  will  be,"  and  at  that  moment 
the  pretty  little  warbler  put  himself  in  pro- 
file on  the  paling  before  us,  and  threw  out 
his  little  waistcoat,  and  threw  back  his  little 
head  and  whistled,  and  we  all  cried  out  that 
he  had  established  his  identity,  there  could 
not  be  any  doubt  of  it,  in  face  of  that  brave 
and  dainty  attitude.  There  are  some  things 
a  bird  never  could  pick  up. 

So  it  is  a  robin  that  has  gone  to  house- 
keeping there  in  the  close-cut  banksia.  He 
is  a  devoted  mate  ;  he  knows  by  heart,  per- 
haps by  experience,  how  necessary  it  is  to 


176       The  Crow's-Nest 

encourage,  dull  little  wives  on  the  nest;  and, 
neglectful  of  the  hard-beating  storm,  he 
perches  as  near  her  as  may  be  and  sends 
out  every  dulcet  variation  he  can  think  of. 
To  the  prisoner  in  the  house  it  seems  a 
supreme  note  of  hope,  this  bird  singing  in 
the  rain. 


Chapter    XV 


I  FIND  it  desirable  to  sit  more  and 
more  out  in  the  rain.  A  little 
stouter  protection,  a  little  more  de- 
termination, and  the  cane-chair  will 
soon  weather  anything.  There  are  still 
tempestuous  half-hours  which  drive  me  as 
far  as  the  verandah,  but  I  am  growing  every 
day  more  used  to  the  steady  beat  and  drip 
about  my  defences,  and  I  now  know  pre- 
cisely the  term  of  resistance  of  every  um- 
brella in  the  house.  One  after  the  other 
I  put  them  to  the  proof;  on  a  really  wet 
day  I  discourage  three  or  four.  An  occa-. 
sional  pelting  of  my  person  does  not  trouble 
me,  I  am  very  water-proof;  but  when  drops 
descend  upon  this  fair  page  and  confuse  its 
sentiments  I  call  loudly  for  another  um- 
brella. Constantly,  no  doubt,  the  cane- 
chair  under  the  conifer  grows  a  stranger 
spectacle ;  but  my  family  have  become  ac- 


178        The  Crow's-Nest 

customed  to  it  and  there  is  no  one  else  to 
see.  The  occasional  rickshaw  that  passes 
along  the  road  above  pays  attention  to  noth- 
ing, but  goes  as  fast  as  it  can,  with  the  hood 
up,  like  a  deranged  beetle,  and  if  any  one 
rides  past  it  is  with  bent  head  and  flying 
mackintosh.  I  have  the  world  very  much 
to  myself,  most  of  the  mountains  when  I 
can  see  them,  and  all  the  garden.  And  it  is 
full  of  rewards  and  satisfactions,  this  rainy 
world.  The  wind  that  pushes  the  clouds 
up  here  blows  over  a  thousand  miles  of  sun 
and  sand  and  draws  a  balm  from  the  desert 
to  mingle  with  its  cool  dampness,  delicious 
to  breathe,  like  a  cooled  drink  to  the  lungs. 
It  cannot  be  tasted  in  the  house  because  of 
the  prevailing  flavour  of  carpets  and  cur- 
tains. Nor  can  anybody  know,  who  has 
not  sat  out  under  it,  the  delight  of  the  slow 
termination  of  a  shower,  the  spacing  lines 
and  the  sparser  drop-dancers  on  the  gravel, 
the  jolly  irregular  drip  from  the  branches  on 
your  umbrella,  the  wraiths  of  mist  skimming 
over  the  drive  and  the  faint  thin  veil  slant- 
ing against  the  deodars  into  which  it  all  dis- 


The  Crow's-Nest       179 

solves.  So  invariably  we  are  careful  to  wait 
in  the  house  "  until  it  is  over,"  —  quite  over. 
A  pencil  cedar  too,  very  wet,  with  a  drop  at 
the  end  of  every  spine,  and  a  soft  gray  light 
shining  through  it,  is  a  good  thing  to  look 
up  into.  "  As  if  it  were  candied,"  as  Thisbe 
politely  conceded,  and  departed  at  once  into 
the  house  out  of  the  damp. 

For  the  first  time,  I  have  this  year  a  rains 
garden.  It  is  a  thing  anybody  may  have, 
but  very  few  people  do.  As  a  rule  gardens 
in  our  part  of  the  world  are  handed  over  in 
the  rains  to  slugs  and  their  own  resources. 
The  resources  of  a  garden,  left  to  itself,  are 
hardly  ever  suspected.  It  is  impossible, 
people  say,  to  keep  it  down,  and  they  sit 
comfortably  in  the  house  looking  out  upon 
the  impossibility.  In  the  hot  weather  they 
say  it  is  impossible  to  keep  it  up.  They 
complain  that  they  are  here  for  so  short  a 
time  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  do  any- 
thing. Most  people  are  transitory  in  our 
little  town,  certainly ;  it  is  generally  only  a 
year  or  two  in  Paradise  and  then  down  again 
into  the  Pit,  but  why  that  year  or  two  should 


i8o       The  Crow's-Nest 

be  thought  less  worth  than  others  of  their 
lives  I  never  can  quite  understand.  Espe- 
cially as  a  flower  takes  such  a  little  while  to 
come  to  you.     But  people  are  just  people. 

To  me  of  course,  peculiarly  situated  under 
a  conifer,  a  rains  garden  was  a  peremptory 
necessity,  and  I  have  had  it  in  my  mind's 
eye  for  months.  There  was  an  unavoidable 
fortnight,  when  the  earlier  flowers  were  going 
out  and  the  others  only  answering  my  invi- 
tation as  it  were,  promising  to  come,  which 
was  not  quite  cheerful.  The  sweet-peas 
fluttered  for  days  about  the  verandah  before 
they  would  submit  to  be  beaten  down,  and 
the  roses,  those  that  were  left,  looked  up  as 
if  they  had  been  for  a  long  time  in  ladies* 
bonnets.  The  mignonette  grew  leggy  and 
curious,  spreading  in  all  directions  and 
forgetting  to  flower,  with  a  smell,  more- 
over, like  decaying  cabbage,  deplorable  in 
mignonette  ;  and  the  petunias  went  off  with 
draggled  petticoats,  which  must  have  been 
distressing  to  a  flower  whose  principal  virtue 
is  her  neat  and  buxom  appearance.  The 
snapdragons   and  the  corn-bottles   are  just 


The  Crow's-Nest       i8i 

holding  on  anyhow  and  the  phloxes  seem 
not  to  know  what  to  do ;  but  the  poppies 
were  dashed  out  in  a  single  night,  and  quan- 
tities of  things  in  pots  have  been  considerately 
removed  by  Atma  to  the  back  parts,  there 
to  meet  dissolution  in  private. 

But  now  everything  that  craves  or  loves 
the  rain  is  coming  on.  I  should  not  be  so 
proud  of  my  potato-vine ;  I  did  not  plant 
it,  but  somebody  probably,  who  looked  down 
from  here  and  saw  the  flame  of  the  mutiny 
light  up  the  land.  He  has  my  thanks ;  he 
has  left  for  himself  a  steadfast  memorial. 
So  eager  is  it  to  do  him  credit  that  every 
hot  weather  shower  a  twig  will  clothe  itself 
in  white ;  and  now,  when  the  time  is  fully 
come  it  trembles  everywhere  over  the  paling 
against  the  sky  and  heaps  up  its  blossoms 
among  its  glossy  leaves  like  snow.  That  is 
not  idle  simile ;  it  takes  blue  shadows  and 
fills  up  chinks,  it  is  exactly  like  snow.  The 
verandah  is  odorous  with  lilies,  from  the  tall 
curling  Japanese  kind,  as  opulent  as  a  lily 
can  be  to  the  simple  and  delicate  day  lilies 
that  love  this  world  so  little.     All  the  lilies 


1 82       The  Crow's-Nest 

live  in  the  verandah  except  the  strenuous 
peppered  orange  kind  which  Tiglath-Pileser 
declares  is  not  the  tiger-lily  and  which  bears 
itself  most  gallantly  under  the  rain,  standing 
like  a  street  lamp  in  the  darkest  corners, 
and  those  strange  crimson  and  yellow  Tigri- 
dae  (I  am  sorry  I  do  not  know  their  Chris- 
tian name)  that  roll  up  so  unexpectedly  with 
us  in  the  middle  of  the  morning.  I  must 
say  I  like  a  flower  that  you  can  depend  up- 
on. Mr.  Johnson  speaks  contemptuously 
of  the  Tigridae,  so  I  suppose  they  are  com- 
mon enough,  but  to  me  they  were  new  and 
very  remarkable,  and  when  they  began  to 
come  out  I  asked  Thalia  to  lunch  to  see 
them.  When  she  arrived,  at  two  o'clock, 
every  one  of  them  had  gone  into  the  likeness 
of  a  duck's  head,  with  a  satirical  red  and 
yellow  eye  that  almost  winked  at  us.  I  was 
prepared  to  ask  Thalia  to  admire  the  Tigri- 
dae, but  such  conduct  puts  one  off.  I  am 
still  willing  to  concede  that  it  is  wonderful ; 
but  you  do  not  want  a  flower  to  astonish 
you ;  its  functions  are  quite  difi'erent.  I 
have  taken  occasion    to   point  out  this   to 


The  Crow's-Nest        183 

Thisbe,  when  she  complains  that  she  is  not 
original. 

Tall  stocks  of  tuberose  —  quite  three  feet 
—  stand  among  the  rose  bushes  in  front  of 
the  drawing-room  windows ;  but  they  turn 
brown  almost  as  fast  as  they  open ;  next 
year  I  will  plant  them  under  the  eaves  for 
more  shelter.  A  clump  of  cannas,  spikes 
of  flame,  waving  splendid  Italian  and  African 
leaves,  red-brown  and  brown-green,  with 
coleas  of  all  colours  sitting  round  their  feet, 
lord  it  at  chosen  corners  on  each  side  of  the 
drive.  Even  on  a  shelf  you  may  have  feat- 
ures ;  it  is  all  a  matter  of  relation.  If  your 
scale  is  only  simple  enough  the  most  sur- 
prising incident  is  possible ;  and  of  this  the 
moral  certainly  lies  in  the  application  of  it. 
Masses  of  pink  and  white  hydrangeas  on  this 
principle  make  the  garden  look  like  a  Japan- 
ese print;  they  are  so  big  and  blotchy  and 
yet  so  simply,  elegantly  effective.  They  are 
distributed  wherever  a  tub  will  improve  the 
shelf-scape;  like  Diogenes  the  hydrangea 
must  have  its  tub.  Put  him  in  the  ground 
and  at  once  he  grows  woody  and  branchy 


1 84       The  Crow's-Nest 

and  leafy,  imagining  perhaps  that  he  is  in- 
tended to  become  a  shrub.  Thus  he  can  be 
seen  to  profit  by  his  limitations  —  of  how 
many  more  of  us  may  this  be  said !  The 
lobelia  —  a  garden  should  always  be  pro- 
vided with  plenty  of  lobelia,  to  give  it  hope 

—  is  flushing  into  the  thick  young  leaf  with 
a  twinkle  here  and  there  to  show  what  it 
could  do  if  the  rain  would  stop  for  just  ten 
minutes ;  and  the  salvia  is  presently  blue, 
though  sparingly,  as  is  its  nature.  The 
fuchsias  care  nothing  for  the  rain  and  are 
full  of  flounces  purple  and  pink ;  but  no- 
body takes  it  quite  like  the  begonias,  who  sit 
up  unblinking  crimson  and  brick-dust  and 
mother-of-pearl,  with  their  gay  yellow  hearts 
in  their  splendid  broad  petals,  saying  plainly 
"We  like  this."  And  dahlias  everywhere, 
single  and  double,  opening  a  cheerful  eye 
upon  a  very  wet  world.  The  dahlia  took 
possession  of  Simla  —  I  have  looked  it  up 

—  the  same  year  the  Government  of  India 
did,  and  it  has  made  itself  equally  at  home. 
It  grows  profusely  not  only  in  our  bits  of 
garden  but  everywhere  along  the  khud-sides 


The  Crow's-Nest       185 

that  border  the  public  highways.  It  mixes 
itself  up  with  Finance  and  Foreign  Rela- 
tions ;  it  nods  under  the  Telegraph  Office 
and  sways  about  the  Military  Department. 
It  does  as  it  pleases,  no  one  attempts  to 
govern  it;  it  paints  our  little  mountain 
town  with  the  colours  of  fantasy  and  of 
freedom. 

Sunflowers  and  nasturtiums  take  as  kindly 
to  bureaucratic  conditions.  We  consider 
them  fellows  of  the  baser  sort  and  plant 
them  all  behind,  the  sunflower  tall  along  the 
lattice  between  us  and  the  road  above,  the 
nasturtiums  scrambling  and  blazing  down 
the  khud-side  beneath.  The  nasturtiums 
make  a  mere  cloth  of  gold,  there  is  not  much 
entertainment  to  be  got  out  of  them ;  but 
on  heavily  pouring  days  when  I  have  be- 
taken myself  to  the  attic-window  level  with 
them,  I  have  found  good  company  in  the 
sunflowers.  Thoughtfully  considered,  the 
sunflower  has  no  features  to  speak  of;  an 
eye,  and  you  have  mentioned  them  all,  yet 
many  comedians  might  envy  that  furnishing. 
His  personality  is  evasive ;  I  have  idly  tried 


1 86       The  Crow's-Nest 

to  draw  him,  and  have  reproduced  a  sun- 
flower but  no  gentleman.  It  lies  in  a  nuance 
of  light  across  that  expressive  round,  which 
may  say  anything,  or  merely  stare.  One 
looks  intelligently  to  the  west,  another  hope- 
fully to  the  east.  Two  little  ones  cower  to- 
gether ;  another  glances  confidently  up  at  its 
tall  mother,  another  folds  its  leaves  under 
its  chin  and  considers  the  whole  question  of 
life  with  philosophy.  On  a  particularly  wet 
day  I  find  a  note  to  the  efi'ect  that  a  small 
sunflower  called  across  to  me,  "  I  am  just 
out  this  morning  and  it 's  pouring.  A  nice 
look-out,  but  I  '11  try  to  bear  up."  That 
was  the  day  on  which  I  distinctly  saw  a 
sunflower  shut  its  eye. 

With  Tiglath-Pileser  everything  is  sec- 
ondary at  present  to  the  state  of  the  drains 
and  the  kitchen  roof.  The  drains  are  open 
channels  down  the  khud-side,  the  kitchen 
roof  is  of  tin,  and  when  it  leaks  enough  to 
put  the  fire  out  the  cook  comes  and  com- 
plains. He  is  a  Moog  cook,  which  means 
that  he  prefers  to  avoid  the  disagreeable,  so 
he  waits  until   it  is  actually  out  before  he 


The  Crow's-Nest       187 

says  anything.  When,  between  showers,  we 
walk  abroad  upon  the  shelf  my  footsteps 
naturally  tend  to  the  border  where  the  wild 
puce-coloured  Michaelmas  daisies  are  thick- 
ening among  the  goldenrod,  and  his  would 
take  the  straightest  direction  to  the  plumber 
and  the  coolies  who  are  making  another  stone 
ditch  for  him.  To  me  there  is  no  joy  in  re- 
pairing a  kitchen  roof,  nor  can  I  ever  decide 
whether  it  should  be  tarred  or  painted,  while 
to  Tiglath-Pileser  the  union  of  Michaelmas 
daisies  and  goldenrod,  though  pleasing,  is 
a  matter  of  trivial  importance.  So  we  have 
agreed  upon  the  principle  of  a  fair  partition 
of  interest.  He  comes  and  assumes  mode- 
rate enthusiasm  before  my  hedge  of  purple 
and  yellow ;  I  go  and  pronounce  finally  that 
nothing  could  be  uglier  than  either  paint  or 
tar  for  the  kitchen  roof.  By  such  small 
compromises  as  these  people  may  hold 
each  other  in  the  highest  estimation  for 
years. 

The  consideration  of  the  kitchen  roof 
reminds  me  of  poor  Delia,  from  whom  I 
had  a  letter  this  morning.     She  has  rejoined 


I  88       The  Crow's-Nest 

her  husband  in  a  frontier  outpost,  where 
the  Department  of  Military  Works  had 
somewhat  neglected  their  quarters.  Their 
position  —  that  of  Captain  and  Mrs.  Delia 
—  in  this  weather  is  trying  to  a  degree.  In 
a  particularly  heavy  storm  recently  the  rain 
came  in  upon  them  in  such  floods  that  they 
were  obliged  to  take  refuge  under  the  table. 
Imagine  the  knock  of  a  stranger  at  the  gate 
under  such  circumstances  1  It  was  better 
than  that  —  it  was  the  knock  of  a  way- 
faring Sapper  come  to  inspect  the  bungalow. 
How  great  must  Delia's  joy  have  been  in 
making  him  comfortable  under  the  table ! 
And  there  they  sat,  all  three,  for  fifteen 
mortal  hours,  subsisting,  for  the  cook-house 
was  carried  away,  upon  ginger-nuts  and 
chocolates  and  a  bottle  of  anchovies.  The 
more  remote  service  of  Her  Majesty  our 
Queen-Empress  involves  some  curious  situ- 
ations. The  Sapper,  Delia  writes,  went 
forth  no  longer  a  stranger;  fifteen  hours 
spent  together  under  a  table  would  naturally 
make  a  bond  for  life.  One  might  also  trust 
Delia,  whose  mission  is  everywhere  to  strike 


The  Crow's-Nest        189 

a  note  of  gaiety  and  make  glad  the  heart  of 
man,  to  give  the  circumstance  a  character 
sufficiently  memorable.  Almost,  if  four 
would  not  have  been  a  crowd,  I  could  have 
wished  myself  there  too,  under  the  table. 


Chapter   XVI 


I  HAVE  heard  crying  in  the  nursery ; 
it  is  the  most  babyish  and  plaintive 
repetition  of  the  old  birds'  note,  but 
it  grows  daily  stronger,  more  impor- 
tunate. The  parent  birds  utter  six  notes, 
dwelling  on  the  fourth  in  long  musical 
appeal,  the  babies  have  learned  only  the 
fourth,  the  one  that  really  tells  when  you 
are  hungry;  it  is  a  little  pipe,  ridiculous  to 
tears.  The  pretty  little  warbler  pursues  his 
gambols  more  energetically  than  ever  before 
the  door  of  our  Eastern  bungalow  now,  his 
wife  comes  with  him  and  they  are  more 
punctual  than  we  are  at  meals,  always  in  the 
verandah,  on  the  impatient  hop,  for  break- 
fast and  lunch  and  tea,  though  dinner-time 
finds  them  relucantly  in  bed.  I  will  go  so 
far  as  to  say  that  if  I  am  late  in  the  morning 
the  father  bird  comes  to  my  window  and 
asks  whether  I  am  aware  that  I  am  keeping 


The  Crow's-Nest       191 

two  families  waiting  —  if  that  is  not  his  idea 
why  does  he  so  markedly  whistle  there? 
Further  I  expect  to  be  believed  when  I  say 
that  I  whistle  him  my  apologies  and  he 
replies,  and  we  frequently  have  quite  long 
conversations  through  the  window  before  I 
actually  appear.  They  are  such  a  young 
couple  and  so  absorbed  in  their  domestic 
affairs  that  we  take  a  great  interest  in  them. 
It  is  a  delight  to  find  out  a  bird's  doings 
and  plans,  and  his  nest  is  tl;ie  only  clue.  At 
other  times  how  private  they  are,  the  birds  ! 
We  know  that  they  are  about,  and  that  is 
all. 

One  real  service  I  have  been  able  to  ren- 
der the  robins  —  in  throwing  stones  at  the 
crows.  The  crow  has  a  sleek  and  clerical 
exterior,  but  inside  he  is  as  black-hearted  a 
villain  as  wears  feathers.  He  is  a  killer  and 
eater  of  other  people's  offspring.  Early  in 
the  season  he  marks  the  nest,  but  eggs  are 
not  good  enough  for  him,  he  waits  until 
hatching  time  is  well  over  and  then  descends 
upon  it  with  his  great  sharp  jaws  ravaging 
and  devouring.     The     other  day  a  young 


192        The  Crow's-Nest 

bird  took  refuge  from  a  crow  in  my  bath- 
room. It  was  huddled  up  in  a  corner  and  I 
thought  it  a  rat,  but  closer  approach  revealed 
it  a  baby  mina,  and  through  the  open  door  1 
saw  the  enemy's  impudent  black  head  peering 
in.  He  sailed  away  with  imprecations  on  his 
beak  and  the  mina  was  restored  to  its  family  ; 
Atma  fortunately  knew  where  they  lived. 
Two  crows  have  marked  our  robins  for  their 
next  dinner,  and  I  am  much  interrupted  by 
the  necessity  for  disappointing  them.  I 
must  say  one  is  not  disposed  by  such  a  cir- 
cumstance as  a  nest  to  an  over-confident 
belief  in  those  disguising  arrangements  of 
nature  that  are  so  much  vaunted  in  books 
of  popular  science.  What  could  betray  a 
nestful  to  the  marauder  more  quickly  than 
this  perpetual  treble  chorus  ?  Nothing,  I 
am  sure,  unless  the  valiant  declamation  of  its 
papa,  who  sometimes  takes  an  exposed  perch 
and  tells  the  world  exactly  what  he  would  do 
to  a  crow,  if  he  could  only  catch  him.  Why 
are  not  young  birds  taught  the  wisdom  of 
silence  and  old  ones  the  folly  of  vaunting? 
Because  birds  and  lizards  and  insects   and 


The  Crow's-Nest        193 

things  are  not  taught  half  as  much  as  we 
imagine,  and  as  to  the  protective  colour  of  a 
robin  I  believe  it  only  happens  to  be  brown. 
In  this  Thisbe  agrees  with  me  ;  the  amount 
of  popular  science  which  is  not  in  Thisbe's 
possession  would  make  many  a  humble  home 
happy.  The  small  events  of  a  garden,  as  I 
must  apologize  for  pointing  out  once  more, 
become  important  to  any  one  who  lies  all  day, 
warm  or  cold,  awake  or  sleepy  there,  and  I 
went  in  to  tea  lately  bursting  with  the  infor- 
mation that  the  tits  had  come.  "  The  Titts," 
said  Thisbe  meditatively.  "  Did  we  know 
them  last  year?  "  "  I  rather  think  we  did," 
I  replied,  "  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thomas  Titt.  I 
saw  them  this  morning,  but  they  did  n't  leave 
cards."  At  which  I  was  obliged  to  dodge  a 
suddenly  illumined,  perfectly  undeserved 
sofa-cushion. 

The  garden  is  full  of  birds  just  now;  they 
are  for  ever  wanting  to  make  new  introduc- 
tions, it  is  almost  impossible  to  pursue  the 
simplest  train  of  thought.  None  of  them 
are  very  constant  except  the  robins  and  the 
woodpeckers  and  a  pair  of  minas  that  have 
13 


194       The  Crow's-Nest 

built  in  a  disused  chimney  and  squeal  defi- 
ance at  the  crows  all  day  long  from  the 
eavestrough,  —  no  crow  was  ever  yet  bold 
enough  to  go  down  a  chimney  after  his  prey. 
The  rest  come  and  go,  I  never  know  what 
they  are  at,  or  even,  to  tell  the  truth,  how  to 
address  them.  They  appear  suddenly  out 
of  nowhere  and  fly  in  companies  from  tree 
to  tree,  or  settle  down  to  an  industrious  meal 
all  together  under  the  rose-bushes,  as  if  by 
common  consent  they  had  decided  to  picnic 
there ;  perhaps  I  shall  not  see  them  again  for 
two  or  three  days.  Among  the  branches 
they  take  one  direction,  the  tiny  tree-climbers 
with  yellow-green  breasts  are  like  young 
leaves  flying.  They  add  to  life  a  charming 
note  of  the  unexpected,  these  sudden  flights 
of  little  birds ;  I  wish  I  knew  them  to  speak 
to.  .  .  . 

It  must  be  explained  that  this  is  the  fol- 
lowing day,  and  that  an  event  of  a  very 
disturbing  kind  has  taken  place  in  the  mean 
time.  The  rain  was  coming  down  in  sheets 
this  morning  as  Tiglath-Pileser  and  I  stood 
by  the  window  after   breakfast.     From  the 


The  Crow's-Nest        195 

nest  in  the  banksia  came  the  most  keen  and 
mournful  protest.  For  an  instant  it  would 
stop  when  the  old  birds  came  and  filled  the 
little  throats ;  then  the  plaint  against  life 
and  circumstances,  quite  heartbreaking  in 
accents  so  youthful,  would  begin  again,  and 
go  on  until  it  seemed  to  us  too  grievous 
to  be  borne.  Heavily  and  heavily  fell  the 
rain.  "  I  wonder  the  little  beasts  are  n't 
drowned  out,"  said  Tiglath-Pileser.  The 
close-cut  roof  of  the  banksia  seemed  a  very 
poor  protection  to  persons  standing  in  the 
house. 

"  Could  n't  we  do  something  ?  "  I  sug- 
gested "  An  umbrella  ?  "  but  Tiglath-Pileser 
thought  an  umbrella  would  be  too  difficult 
to  fix.  He  went  away,  however,  and  out 
of  his  own  wisdom  and  understanding  he 
produced  a  mackintosh.  This  with  a  walk- 
ing-stick and  infinite  pains  and  precautions 
he  spread  over  the  banksia,  the  rain  de- 
scending upon  his  devoted  head,  I  admon- 
ishing from  the  window.  The  crying  ceased 
instantly,  and  though  we  waited  for  some 
minutes  it  did  not  recommence.     Evidently 


196       The  Crow's-Nest 

the  little  things  were  more  comfortable, 
perhaps  they  had  gone  to  sleep.  "  That," 
said  I  to  Tiglath-Pileser  as  he  turned  away, 
"  was  a  real  kindness." 

Half  an  hour  later  I  was  still  at  the  win- 
dow. No  sound  from  the  nest.  At  a  little 
distance  the  mother  bird  hopped  about 
anxiously,  something  evidently  on  her  mind. 
I  watched  her  for  a  long  time  and  she  did 
not  go  up  to  the  nest.  "  The  old  birds," 
thought  I,  "  are  afraid  of  the  mackintosh. 
It  is  better  to  drown  than  to  starve,"  and 
I  picked  my  way  out  among  the  puddles 
with  a  chair  in  one  hand  and  an  umbrella 
in  the  other  and  managed  to  get  the  thing 
off.  And  there  at  the  foot  of  the  trellis  sat 
a  little  helpless  bunch  of  feathers  with  round 
bright  eyes  and  a  heart  beating  inside,  —  a 
baby  robin  tumbled  out. 

I  picked  the  adventurer  up  and  took  him 
into  the  house.  He  regarded  me  without 
distrust,  comfortable  in  the  warmth  of  my 
hand,  but  when  I  put  him  down  he  sent  out 
no  uncertain  sound  to  say  that  he  was  un- 
friended.    I  have  often  tried  to  feed  fledge- 


The  Crow's-Nest       197 

lings,  it  is  an  impossible  charge  ;  and  my 
advice  as  to  this  one  was  to  put  him  on  the 
window-ledge  where  his  mother  might  do  it. 
There  he  sat  up  with  his  back  to  the  world 
and,  looking  at  me  with  confidence,  unexpec- 
tedly opened  wide  his  preposterous  futile 
yellow  beak.  It  was  as  if  a  gnome  had  sud- 
denly spoken  —  before  the  gaping  demand 
I  was  helpless,  full  of  consternation.  "You 
pathetic  little  idiot,"  I  reflected  aloud,  "  what 
can  /  do  for  you !  "  and  of  course  by  the 
time  bread  and  water  arrived  the  beak  was 
hermetically  sealed,  as  usual.  I  sat  down 
with  confidence,  however,  to  await  events, 
and  presently  the  small  brown  mother,  say- 
ing all  sorts  of  things  in  an  undertone,  came 
slipping  in  and  out  among  the  rose-stems 
below ;  and  with  much  relief  I  saw  the  wan- 
derer drop  over  the  sill  and  join  her.  They 
made  off  together  very  quietly,  and  again 
I  watched,  uneasily,  the  nest.  No  sound, 
no  parent  birds,  and  as  time  went  on  still 
silence  and  abandonment.  I  decided  that 
the  young  ones  had  been  drowned  or  chilled 
to    death    before  we  thought  of  protecting 


198       The  Crow's  Nest 

them,  that  the  friendly  mackintosh  had  come 
too  late  ;  and  in  some  depression  I  went  out 
to  see.  By  standing  on  a  chair  I  could  just 
reach,  and  thrusting  my  hand  through  the 
wet  leaves  I  felt  for  the  little  corpses.  The 
nest  was  ernpty  ! 

It  is  a  novel  and  rather  a  laughable  sen- 
sation to  be  taken  in  —  completely  sold  — 
by  a  bird.  How  she  managed  it  I  cannot 
imagine,  for  it  all  happened  under  my  eyes 
and  I  saw  nothing,  but  one  by  one  she  must 
have  enticed  her  family  out  into  a  most 
unattractive  world  some  days  before  their 
time,  alarmed  at  the  shrouding  mackintosh. 
The  last  had  got  only  as  far  as  the  foot  of 
the  trellis  when  I  found  it.  She  had  out- 
witted Providence.  I  sent  for  Atma  and 
together  we  prowled  and  searched  about  the 
garden  in  the  lessening  rain.  Presently  he 
paused  beside  the  closest  tangles  of  the 
potato  creeper,  "  Chupsie  !  "^  said  he  —  the 
word  was  half  a  whisper,  half  a  soft  whistle 
—  and  bent  down.     I  looked  too,  and  there 

1  Quietly. 


The  Crow's-Nest      199 


they  sat  in  a  row,  three  soft,  surprised, 
obedient  little  feather-balls,  well  hidden,  and 
waiting  no  doubt  to  see  what  in  this  as- 
tonishing wilderness  would  happen  next.  I 
got  back  to  the  window  in  time  to  receive 
the  parent  birds'  opinion  of  me,  full- 
throated,  unabridged.  They  poured  it  out 
from  perches  commanding  the  banksia,  from 
which  they  could  see  the  Thing  removed 
and  their  premature  flitting  quite  foolish  and 
futile.  Plainly  they  connected  me  with  the 
horrid  dream  that  for  an  hour  had  cloaked 
all  their  horizon,  and  it  was  b.  murderous 
scolding.  Ten  days  of  steady  rain  and  then 
this  misfortune !  Every  other  bird  was 
silent  in  shelter,  only  these  two  poured 
forth  their  tale  of  dolorous  injustice. 
What  weather  to  be  obliged  to  fledge  in  — 
pretty  accommodation  for  a  young  family 
in  a  potato-creeper  !  Was  I  not  aware  that 
they  had  been  brought  up  in  the  rains 
themselves,  hatched  exactly  this  time  last 
year .?  Could  I  not  conceive  that  they 
might  be  able  to  mind  their  own  busi- 
ness ?     "  When    you    have   quite  finished," 


2  00       The  Crow's-Nest 

I  whistled  humbly,  "  I  '11  explain,"  but  I 
couldn't  get  a  word  in,  as  the  saying  is, 
edgeways,  and  finally  I  fled,  leaving  them 
still  expressing  their  opinion  of  well-inten- 
tioned people. 


Chapter    XVII 


WE  have  arrived  at  September  and 
the  rains  are  "breaking."  For 
two  months  and  a  half  they 
have  trampled  upon  us  steadily, 
armies  on  the  march  ;  now  they  come  in  scat- 
tered battalions  and  make  off  as  if  pursued. 
The  attack,  too,  is  as  erratic ;  it  will  hammer 
hard  upon  the  kitchen  while  not  a  drop  falls 
on  the  verandah,  or  a  great  slant  will  sweep 
down  the  nearest  valley  while  we  look  on  in 
dry  security  from  the  shelf.  Here  in  the 
garden  a  wall  of  mist  will  often  surround  me, 
with  the  sun  shining  brightly  inside ;  it  turns 
the  shelf  into  a  room,  and  makes  one  think 
of  the  impalpable  barrier  of  one's  environ- 
ment, possible  to  break  in  any  direction  but 
never  broken,  always  there,  the  bound  of 
one's  horizon  and  the  limit  of  one's  activi- 
ties. I  wonder  if  Tiglath-Pileser  will  call 
that  far-fetched. 


202        The  Crow's-Nest 

Thin,  ragged,  white  clouds  sail  over  the 
rose-bushes,  just  low  enough  to  touch  the 
fresh  red  shoots,  which  are  now  as  lovely  to 
look  at,  all  in  new  curling  leaf,  as  ever  they 
can  be  in  full  rose  time.  That  of  course  is 
written  when  there  are  no  roses  here  to  con- 
tradict me.  There  is  one  red-brown  tone 
that  one  never  sees  except  on  a  new  leafing 
rose-bush  and  in  the  eyes  of  some  animals, 
and  there  is  a  purple  which  is  mixed  nowhere 
else  at  all.  And  it  all  shines  —  how  it 
shines  !  —  under  the  soft  cloud  fringes,  and 
when  by  accident  a  full-hearted  deep-pink 
rose  comes  and  sits  alone  among  these  young 
twigs  and  sprays  the  sight  gives  that  strange 
ache  of  pleasure  that  hints  how  difficult  per- 
petual ecstasy  would  be  to  bear.  The  rose- 
bed  sleeps  in  the  rains,  but  it  sleeps  with  one 
eye  open  ;  I  seldom  look  in  vain  for  at  least 
one  flower.  Now  it  is  full  of  buds  ;  the  rose 
of  yesterday  is  only  waiting  for  to-morrow. 
Marechal  Niels  have  waited  in  a  different  way; 
they  have  not  put  out  new  roses  but  they  have 
clung  obstinately  to  the  old  ones.  "  At  once 
the  silken  tassel  of  my  purse  tear,  and  its 


The  Crow's-Nest       203 

treasure  on  the  garden  throw  '*  is  no  part  of 
the  Marechal  Niel's  philosophy.  It  hangs 
a  heavy  head  and  clings  to  every  petal,  reluc- 
tantly giving  up  day  by  day  a  moiety  of  its 
sweetness  and  lasting  so  unwarrantably  long 
that  in  sheer  indignation  I  frequently  cut  off 
its  head.  The  garden  rejoices  wildly  now, 
all  the  rains-flowers  are  gayer  than  ever, 
and  daily  confess  to  the  sun  that  they  never 
really  pretended  to  do  without  him.  A  new 
lease  of  vitality  has  sprung  up  everywhere ; 
even  the  poor  sticks  that  Atma  has  propped 
up  the  dahlias  with,  have  forgotten  that  they 
have  been  cut  off  untimely  and  are  trying  to 
bud.  There  is  sadness  in  this  and  I  will  not 
consider  it. 

The  crows  are  moved  to  speak  in  all  sorts 
of  strange  languages,  including  a  good  deal 
of  English.  One  took  his  seat  on  the 
very  swaying  top  of  a  deodar  this  morn- 
ing and  distinctly  ejaculated  "Oh  Bother! 
Oh  Bother!  Oh  Bother!"  with  a  guttural 
throaty  emphasis  that  excited  me  at  last  to 
an  unfriendly  stone ;  whereat  he  went  from 
bad  to  worse  and   cursed    me.     The   crow 


2  04        The  Crow*s-Nest 

that  superintends  the  East  is  a  strange  bird, 
never  happy,  seldom  in  a  good  humour. 
He  declaims,  he  soliloquizes,  he  frequently 
flies  off  and  says  "  I  '11  enquire ;  "  but  his 
principal  note  is  that  of  simple  derision  and 
he  plainly  finds  humbug  in  everything.  He 
has  no  period  of  tender  innocence ;  some 
crows  are  older  than  others  but  nobody  has 
ever  seen  a  young  crow.  There  is  nothing 
like  him  in  England ;  the  rooks  make  as 
much  noise  perhaps,  but  only  for  a  little 
while  in  the  evening ;  the  crow's  comment 
upon  life  is  perpetual.  Remote,  across  a 
valley,  it  is  a  kind  of  fantastic  chorus  to  the 
reckless  course  of  men ;  overhead  it  is  a 
criticism  of  the  most  impertinent  and  espion- 
age without  warrant.  These,  of  course,  are 
only  country  crows ;  in  the  cities,  like  other 
bad  characters,  they  take  greater  liberties,  be- 
coming more  objectionable  by  sophistication. 
The  butterflies  have  come  back  as  if  by 
appointment ;  one  big  blue  and  black  fellow 
is  carrying  on  a  violent  flirtation  with  a 
fuchsia  under  my  very  nose.  She  has  n't 
much  honey,  and  he,  according  to  Tiglath- 


The  Crow's-Nest      205 

Pileser  has  hardly  anything  to  extract  it  with. 
I  fear,  in  the  cynicism  of  our  contemporary 
Gauls,  //  perd  terriblement  son  temps^  but  it 
seems  to  amuse  them  both,  and  why  comment 
more  severely  upon  the  charming  fooling  of 
affinities  ?  The  butterflies  alight  so  differ- 
ently now  upon  the  gravel  drive,  which 
is  still  glistening  wet ;  they  pause  there 
on  lightest  tiptoe  with  waving  wings ;  a 
butterfly  hates  cold  feet.  The  bees  are  as 
busy  and  as  cheery  as  ever ;  I  have  wasted 
the  last  ten  minutes  in  watching  a  bumble- 
bee, with  the  most  persuasive  hum,  sucking 
the  last  of  their  sweetness  out  of  the  corn- 
bottles.  The  bee  clings  and  the  flower 
drops  over ;  the  old  pretty  garden  idyll 
never  loses  its  power  to  please.  Dear  me, 
if  it  would  always  rain  and  be  unattractive 
I  might  get  something  done ;  as  it  is  .  .  . 
That  was  rather  a  sharp  shower,  and  I 
noticed  that  the  hawk-moth  courting  the 
salvias,  braved  it  through.  One  would 
have  thought  that  the  big  drops  would  have 
reduced  him  to  a  tiny  ball  of  wet  fluff  in 
two    minutes,  but    he  has  gone  on  darting 


2o6       The  Crow's-Nest 

from  flower  to  flower  quite  indifferent.  Last 
night  a  hawk-moth  dined  with  us,  on  the 
dahlias  in  the  middle  of  the  table.  He 
thought  it  a  charming  sunny  day  under  the 
lamps,  and  enjoyed  himself  enormously, 
only  leaving  with  the  ladies  as  he  objected 
to  tobacco.  We  should  be  delighted  to  see 
him  again. 

A  morning  ride,  I  am  glad  to  say,  is  not 
considered  an  adventure  into  the  world,  and 
morning  rides  are  again  possible  without 
the  risk  of  a  drenching.  I  have  left  Pat 
and  Arabi  in  the  seclusion  of  their  stables  all 
this  time,  but  for  no  fault,  as  we  should  say 
if  we  were  selling  them.  Horses,  I  fear  I 
am  of  those  who  fondly  think,  were  created 
first  in  a  mood  of  pure  pleasure,  and  a  care- 
ful Providence  then  made  men  to  look  after 
them.  I  should  not  like  to  tell  Thisbe 
this ;  she  takes  the  orthodox  view  about  the 
succession  of  beasts  and  it  might  make  her 
consider  one  unsound ;  but  I  do  not  mind 
saying  it  in  print  where  it  is  likely  to  do 
less  harm.  Besides,  my  friend  the  Ben- 
gal Lancer  entirely  agrees  with  me,  and  that 


The  Crow's-Nest       207 

is  what  one  might  call  a  professional  opinion. 
Pat  and  Arabi  came  walking  in  on  the  shelf 
one  spring  morning  a  year  and  a  half  ago, 
very  meek  and  sorry  for  themselves,  having 
climbed  up  every  one  of  fifty-eight  miles 
and  seven  thousand  feet  on  very  little,  prob- 
ably, but  hay.  They  came  out  of  a  kicking, 
squealing  herd  in  the  Rawalpindi  fair,  where 
Tiglath-Pileser  bought  them  on  a  day  with 
their  full  respective  equipment  of  hill-ropes, 
a  ragged  blanket,  a  tin  bucket  and  a  valet 
for  less  than  twenty  pounds  apiece.  The 
price  seems  low  when  you  consider  that 
Arabi's  papa  was  a  Persian  of  pedigree 
and  Pat's  an  English  thoroughbred.  It 
is  due  to  certain  liberal  provisions  of  an 
all-wise  Government  which  nobody  is 
compelled  to  discuss  except  the  officials  of 
the  Remount  Department.  It  will  be 
enough  to  say  that  we  do  not  boast  of  their 
connections  on  the  maternal  side,  and  pain- 
fully try  to  subdue  all  characteristics  which 
seem  to  hark  back  that  way.  Their  siring 
is  by  dirty  scrip  established,  but  in  this 
country  it    is  a    wise    foal    that    knows    his 


2o8        The  Crow's-Nest 

own  mother.-  Arabi  has  a  pink  streak  on 
his  nose  which  was  plainly  one  of  his 
mother's  charms,  but  this,  as  I  cannot  see 
it  when  I  am  on  his  back,  troubles  me  less 
than  his  four  white  stockings  and  hoofs  to 
match,  which  were  also  bequeathed  to  him 
by  her.  But  his  glossy  coat  and  the  arch 
of  his  neck  and  his  paces  he  inherits  from  his 
more  distinguished  parent,  after  whom  also  we 
have  had  the  weakness  to  name  him.  I  don't 
like  to  think  of  Arabi's  tie  with  the  country; 
she  probably  went  in  an  ekka*  with  a  string 
of  blue  beads  across  her  forehead  ;  but  Pat's 
mother's  family  was  pure  tribal  Waziri, 
which  means  that  with  the  manners  and 
make  of  your  English  sire  you  come  into 
the  world  with  the  wiry  alertness  your  ma- 
ternal grandfather  learned  in  getting  round 
lofty  mountain  corners  in  a  hurry,  and  a 
way  of  lifting  your  feet  in  trotting  over 
stony  country  that  is  pretty  to  see,  and 
a  pride  in  your  dark  grey  coat  and  iron 
muscles  that  there  is  no  need  to  conceal 
either.     Of  course  you  may  also  inherit  the 

1  Country  cart. 


The  Crow's-Nest      209 

Waziri  irritability  of  temperament  Pat,  in 
a  moment  of  annoyance,  one  day  early  last 
season,  cow-kicked  the  Head  of  the  Army 
Veterinary  Department,  but  that  was  before 
he  had  been  long  enough  in  Simla  to  know 
who  people  were.  He  would  not  dream  of 
doing  such  a  thing  now  ;  at  least  he  might 
dream  of  it,  but  that  is  all.  He  is  a  noble 
animal  and  he  has  his  ambitions.  I  some- 
times think  they  are  directed  against  the 
pair  of  fat  Australian  cobs  that  draw  the 
carriage  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  Wazi- 
ris  of  all  classes  dislike  the  Commander-in- 
Chief;  and  Pat  may  very  well  have  a  blood 
feud  on  his  hoofs  to  avenge. 

Pat  is  the  prouder,  the  more  daring  ani- 
mal of  the  two;  Arabi  merely  champs  and 
pretends  to  bite  his  groom  to  show  that  he 
too  is  of  noble  blood.  Pat  will  take  the 
lead  past  a  perambulator  any  day  and  will 
only  slightly  consider  a  length  of  unexpected 
drain  pipe  along  the  road.  But  even  Pat 
has  his  objects  of  suspicion,  and  chief  among 
them  is  a  man,  any  man  on  foot  in  black 
clothes.  At  such  a  person  he  will  always 
14 


2IO       The  Crow's-Nest 

shy  violently.  This  is  a  cause  of  great 
inconvenience  and  embarrassment  to  us. 
There  is  one  perfectly  inoffensive  gentle- 
man, rather  stout,  who  beams  upon  the 
world  through  his  spectacles  with  unvarying 
amiability,  whose  perfectly  respectable  oc- 
cupation no  doubt  compels  him  to  wear 
black,  and  whom  it  is  our  misfortune  con- 
stantly to  meet.  Neither  soft  words  nor 
smiting  will  induce  Pat  to  pass  this  person 
without  a  wild  affrighted  curve  away  from 
him.  The  first  time  he  smiled ;  the  second 
time  he  looked  mildly  surprised ;  the  third 
time  he  mantled  with  indignation,  and  now 
he  always  mantles.  It  has  gone,  I  assure 
you,  quite  beyond  a  joke.  And  we,  what 
can  we  do?  You  cannot  apologize  for  a 
thing  like  that.  One's  usual  course  when  a 
pony  shies  is  to  take  him  up  to  the  object 
and  let  him  sniff  it  so  that  he  will  know 
better  the  next  time,  but  how  ask  an  elderly, 
self-respecting  gentleman  to  allow  himself  to 
be  sniffed  in  that  way?  This  morning  I 
saw  the  object  coming,  and  had  an  inspira- 
tion.    "  Let  us  turn  round,"  said  I  to  Tig- 


The  Crow's-Nest       211 

lath-Pileser,  "  and  let  him  pass  us.''  So  we 
turned  and  waited,  with  the  air  of  expecting 
some  one  from  the  opposite  direction.  The 
man  in  black  came  nervously  on  and  Tig- 
lath-Pileser  laid  a  reassuring  hand  on  Pat's 
neck.  Would  you  believe  it,  Pat  stood  like 
an  angel,  and  the  man  in  black  shied  I  Shied 
badly.  And  went  on  looking  more  furious 
than  ever.  We  daily  expect  to  have  some 
kind  of  writ  served  on  us,  and  do  not. at 
all  know  what  steps  we  should  take. 

The  ponies  went  excitedly  this  morning, 
as  they  always  do  after  a  storm  like  the  one 
we  had  last  night.  "  Ridiculous  animal," 
said  I  to  Arabi  as  he  paused  to  look  askance 
at  a  small  boulder  that  had  slipped  down 
the  khud.  "  This  is  the  same  old  road  you 
travelled  many  yesterdays  and  will  travel 
many  to-morrows.  Foolish  beast,  of  what 
are  you  afraid  ?  "  Tiglath-Pileser  reproved 
me.  "  To  us,"  said  he,  "  it  is  the  same  old 
road,  but  to  a  really  observant  person  like 
Arabi  it  presents  fifty  significant  changes. 
He  in  his  stable  listened  to  the  rain  last 
night   with    emotions    quite    different   from 


2  12        The  Crow's-Nest 

yours  in  your  bed.  To  him  it  meant  that 
the  young  grass  was  everywhere  springing 
and  the  turf  everywhere  softening  under  foot, 
and  no  doubt  he  reflected  once  more  upon 
the  insoluble  problem  presented  by  heel- 
ropes  and  your  meals  in  a  trough.  This 
morning  his  experienced  eye  discovers  all  he 
expected  and  more,  —  puddles,  channels, 
and  other  suspicious  circumstances.  That 
stone  was  not  there  yesterday,  no  doubt  a 
wild  beast  had  unearthed  it  and  was  sitting 
behind  it  as  we  passed,  waiting  for  just  such 
a  breakfast  as  Arabi  knows  he  comprises. 
That  the  wild  beast  didn't  happen  to  be 
there  on  this  occasion  was  great  luck  for 
Arabi  and  you  can  see  he  is  relieved." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  unsympathetic,  "  I  think 
a  good  deal  of  it  is  nonsense  all  the  same," 
and  as  we  approached  the  next  lurking  lion 
I  gave  Arabi  a  sound  cuff  that  drew  off  his 
attention  and  he  cantered  past  it  without  a 
word. 

The  familiar  road  wound  round  our  own 
hill,  the  Roy-Regent's  hill  crowned  with  his 
castle,    and    Summer    Hill.      It   would    be 


The  Crow's-Nest       213 

entertaining  to  be  as  observant  as  Arabi  and 
find  wonders  round  every  curve ;  we  come 
far  short  of  that  and  sometimes  confess  the 
great  book  of  nature  before  us  a  little  dull  for 
lack  of  the  writing  of  man.  It  is  possible 
that  mountains  may  suggest  mere  altitude, 
especially  mountains  like  the  Himalayas, 
wall  behind  wall,  waves  transfixed  in  long 
unbroken  lines  against  the  sky  ;  one  cannot 
always  feel  a  passion  of  admiration  for  mere 
matter  at  an  inconvenient  level.  But  their 
new  mood  of  the  rains  makes  them  beau- 
tiful, almost  interesting.  The  mist  rises 
among  them  and  turns  them  cleverly  into 
the  peaks  and  masses  they  ought  to  be,  and 
a  slope  flashes  in  the  brilliant  sun  and  a 
ravine  sinks  in  the  purple  shade,  and  the 
barest  shoulder  is  cloaked  in  green  velvet. 
"  They  would  give  a  good  deal  to  see  thai 
from  the  Row,"  I  say  boastfully,  and  Tig- 
lath-Pileser  responds  "  Yes  indeed,"  and  we 
both  look  at  it  as  if  we  were  the  proprietors, 
momentarily  almost  inclined  to  admit  it  as  a 
compensation. 

The  jungle    triumphs    in    the    rains ;    it 


2  14       The  Crow's-Nest 

overwhelms  the  place.  Even  on  the  shelf  it  is 
hard  enough  to  cope  with,  creeping  up,  licking 
and  lipping  the  garden  through  the  paling ; 
but  out  upon  the  public  khud-sides  it  is  un- 
checked and  insatiable.  We  hate  the  jungle  ; 
it  is  so  patient  and  designing  and  unremit- 
ting, so  much  stronger  than  we  are.  Such 
constant  war  we  have  to  make  upon  it 
merely  to  prevent  it  from  swallowing  us 
alive.  It  will  plant  a  toadstool  in  your 
bedroom  and  a  tree  in  your  roof;  it  shrinks 
from  nothing.  That  is  why  we  hear  new- 
comers from  tidy  England  in  rapture  upon 
the  glorious  freedom  of  the  wilderness  with 
grim  displeasure ;  and  point  to  the  crooked 
squares  of  our  pathetic  little  estates,  pain- 
fully redeemed  and  set  smugly  about  with 
posies,  saying  "  Admire  that  I  "  And  it  is 
so  demoralizing,  the  jungle.  The  oak,  for 
instance,  at  home,  is  a  venerable  person  we 
all  respect  and  some  of  us  used  to  worship. 
Here  he  is  a  disreputable  old  Bacchus  with 
an  untrimmed  beard  and  ferns  sticking  to  his 
branches.  Certain  English  flowers  even,  alas 
that  I  should  say  it !  have  left  the  paths  of 


The  Crow's-Nest       215 

propriety  and  taken  permanently  to  unregu- 
lated living.  The  dahlia  has  never  re- 
pented, and  the  tiger-lilies  brazen  it  out, 
but  the  little  blue  face  of  a  convolvulus  I 
met  this  morning,  strayed  away  in  the  com- 
pany of  a  snake-plant  and  a  young  rhodo- 
dendron, said  with  wistful  plainness,  "  I  was 
a  virtuous  flower  once !  " 

Everything  is  still  very  damp,  and  in  the 
shade  very  chill,  and  we  were  glad  enough 
to  escape  the  cloud  that  suddenly  sobered 
the  highway  just  as  we  turned  in  upon  the 
shelf.  A  figure  moved  along  the  road  in 
the  greyness,  came  closer,  making  auto- 
matic movements  of  head  and  hands,  passed 
us  —  a  coolie  eating  a  cucumber.  It  was  a 
long  and  thick  cucumber,  and  he  was  eating 
the  rind  and  the  seeds,  everything.  It 
seemed  a  cold,  unsuitable,  injudicious  thing 
for  even  a  coolie  to  eat  in  the  rain.  We 
hoped  it  was  vicious  indulgence,  but  we 
feared  it  was  his  breakfast. 


Chapter    XVIII 


WE  have  entered  upon  the  period 
of  our  great  glory  and  con- 
tent ;  it  is  second  summer  in 
these  hills,  with  just  a  crisp 
hint  of  autumn  coming.  There  is  nothing 
left  of  the  rains  but  their  benediction  ;  all 
day  long  the  sun  draws  the  scent  out  af  the 
deodars  and  makes  false  promises  to  the 
garden,  where  they  believe  it  is  spring. 
The  field-daisies  and  the  hollyhocks  and 
the  mignonette  are  all  in  second  bloom  and 
the  broom  down  the  khud  has  kindled  up 
again.  The  person  who  is  really  puzzled 
is  the  lilac.  We  have  a  lilac  bush.  I  as- 
sure you  it  is  not  everybody  who  can  say 
so  in  the  town  of  Simla ;  the  lilac  is  most 
capricious  about  where  she  will  stay  and 
where  she  won't  stay.  We  have  only  one ; 
all  her  children  either  die  young  or  grow 
up  dwarfs.  However,  after  blooming  in 
the  most  delicious  and  heartbreaking  man- 


The  Crow's-Nest       217 

ner  in  April,  fainting  through  June  and 
going  quite  distracted  in  the  rains,  the  lilac 
now  finds  new  sap  in  her  veins  and  the 
temptation  assails  her  to  flower  regardless 
of  the  calendar.  Yet  she  does  n't,  poor  dear, 
quite  know  how  ;  something  is  lacking  to  the 
consummation  of  April,  and  the  fictitious  joy 
she  grasps  at  comes  out  in  ragged  little 
bunches  that  stick  straight  up  at  the  end  of 
the  wood  of  the  topmost  branches.  Never- 
theless it  is  pure  lilac,  enough  for  a  button- 
hole, and  matter  to  boast  of,  lilac  in  October. 
For  all  these  reasons  I  was  perfectly  happy 
this  morning  until  twenty  minutes  past  ten 
o'clock.  Atma  and  I  had  been  transplant- 
ing some  cactus  dahlias  to  fill  up  an  empty 
place.  It  is  a  liberty  I  would  n't  have  taken 
at  this  time  of  year,  but  Atma  says  that  he 
can  deceive  the  dahlias.  "  By  giving  much 
water,"  he  explains,  "  they  will  take  no 
notice,"  and  he  has  been  craftily  setting 
them  down  in  little  ponds.  I  had  a  dis- 
pute with  him  about  a  plant,  which  he  de- 
clared was  a  lily.  To  settle  the  matter,  as 
soon  as  my  back  was  turned,  he  dug  it  up, 


2i8       The  Crow's-Nest 

and  triumphantly  sought  me.  "  Behold," 
said  he,  "  it  has  an  onion."  He  was  dis- 
tressed to  contradict  me,  but  behold  it  had 
an  onion.  The  connection  between  an  on- 
ion and  a  lily  was  simpler  perhaps  to  Atma 
than  it  would  be  to  many  people ;  but  I 
conceded  it.  Then  came  a  pedlar  of  apples 
from  a  neighbouring  garden.  We  shall 
have  apples  of  our  own  in  time,  but  our 
neighbour  down  the  khud  thought  of  it 
three  or  four  years  before  we  did,  and  there 
is  no  particular  reason  to  wait.  Our  neigh- 
bour's sturdy  retailer  squatted  discouraged 
on  his  haunches  before  me.  His  brown 
muscles  stood  out  in  cords  on  his  arms  and 
legs,  his  face  was  anxious  and  simple  like  a 
child's.  "  If  your  honour  will  hsten,"  said 
he,  "  half  over  Simla  I  have  carried  this 
burden  of  apples,  and  it  is  no  lighter.  My 
words  are  good  and  I  go  always  to  the 
verandah,  but  the  sahib-folk  will  not  buy." 

"And  is  that,"  said  I,  eyeing  the  fruit, 
"  a  strange  thing,  worthy  one  ?  " 

He  picked  up  an  apple  and  held  it  dis- 
paragingly, at  arm's-length,  in  front  of  him. 


The  Crow' s-Nest       219 

"  Certainly  they  are  going  rotten,"  said  he 
simply.  "  And  the  more  they  rot  the  louder 
is  the  anger  of  the  mistress  when  I  carry 
them  back.  Your  honour  will  listen  —  if 
apples  rot  is  it  the  fault  of  the  servant? 
No,"  he  answered  himself  with  solid  con- 
viction, "  it  is  the  fault  of  God." 

He  sat  in  the  sun  content — content  to 
sit  and  talk  of  his  grievance  with  his  load 
on  the  ground.  I  smiled  at  his  dilemma, 
and  he  smiled  back ;  but  gravity  quickly 
overtook  him,  it  was  a  serious  matter. 

"  Seven  days  ago,  when  they  were  sound," 
he  went  on,  "  the  gardener  himself  took 
them  and  sold  many.  Now  he  gives  me 
the  command,  and  because  I  do  not  sell 
there  is  talk  of  a  donkey." 

"  Truly  you  are  no  donkey,  worthy  one," 
said  I  soothingly.  "  All  the  donkeys  are 
employed  by  the  washermen  to  carry  home 
the  clothes.  You  are  a  large,  fine,  useful 
Pahari.  What  is  the  price  of  the  apples  ^ 
Some  of  them  are  good." 

"  It  is  true  talk  that  the  mistress  said  ten 
annas  a  seer,"   he  replied  eagerly,  "  but  if 


2  20       The  Crow's-Nest 

your  honour  wishes  to  pay  eight  annas  I 
will  say  that  your  honour,  seeing  the  rotten- 
ness, would  give  no  more." 

I  would  not  profit  by  the  rottenness  since 
it  did  not  concern  me,  so  he  picked  out  of 
his  best  for  me  with  exclamations,  "  Lo,  how 
it  is  red  !  "  "  Listen,  this  one  will  be  a 
honey-wallah  !  "  and  almost  more  polishing 
than  I  could  bear.  The  cloud  departed  from 
his  honest  face,  it  was  that  I  had  paid  for ; 
and  when  Tiglath-Pileser  passing  by  said 
that  I  had  been  imposed  upon  I  was  indig- 
nant. He,  the  master,  would  not  have  an 
apple  though  they  are  really  very  good,  and 
neither  do  I  feel  so  disposed  ;  they  must  be 
made  into  a  pudding.  We  talked  for  a  little 
while  of  the  annoyance  of  reaching  that  criti- 
cal time  of  life  when  one  looks  askance  at 
a  casual  apple.  In  early  youth  it  is  a  trifle 
to  be  appropriated  at  any  hour ;  between 
the  ages  of  ten  and  fourteen  it  is  preferable 
the  last  thing  before  going  to  bed.  After 
that  ensues  a  period  of  indifference,  full  of 
the  conviction  that  there  are  things  in  the 
world   more   interesting  than    apples ;    and 


The  Crow's-Nest       221 

by  the  time  one  again  realizes  that  there  is 
nothing  half  so  good,  circumstances  have 
changed  so  that  it  is  most  difficult  to  decide 
when  to  eat  them.  A  raw  apple  in  the  Amer- 
ican fashion  before  breakfast  is  admitted  by 
the  mass  of  mankind  to  have  a  too  discour- 
aging effect  upon  everything  else,  and  all 
will  grant  that  it  is  impossible  to  do  justice 
to  its  flavour,  impossible  to  cope  with  it  in 
any  way,  after  a  meal.  It  is  not  elusive  — 
like  the  grape  or  the  lychee ;  it  is  far  too 
much  on  the  spot.  There  remains  the  im- 
promptu occasion,  but  you  have  long  since 
come  to  regard  with  horror  anything  "  be- 
tween meals."  A  day  arrives  when  the  fact 
stares  you  in  the  face  that  there  is  no  time 
at  which  to  eat  an  apple.  Tiglath-Pileser 
and  I  considered  it  together  this  morning ; 
but  we  were  philosophic,  we  did  n't  mind, 
we  remembered  that  up  to  threescore  years 
and  ten  there  would  probably  always  be 
somebody  to  bake  them  for  us  and  were 
happy,  nevertheless.  Then  Tryphena  came 
and  stayed  an  hour,  and  now  I  am  not  so 
happy  as  I  was. 


2  22        The  Crow's-Nest 

I  would  not  dwell  upon  her,  I  would  pass 
to  other  themes,  but  one  has  a  feeling  that 
Tryphena  has  been  too  much  omitted  from 
accounts  of  our  little  town.  Such  chronicles 
have  been  somehow  too  playful ;  one  would 
think,  we  did  nothing  but  discover  affinities 
and  listen  to  the  band  and  eat  expensive 
things  in  tins.  One  would  think  life  was  all 
joy  and  pleasure  whereas  there  are  Associa- 
tions of  every  kind.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  case  in  the  golden  age,  or  the  time 
of  Lord  Lytton,  I  believe  that  the  great 
over-fed  conscience  of  Great  Britain  now 
sends  out  more  Tryphenas  every  year,  and 
their  good  works  have  to  be  seriously 
reckoned  with  in  considering  the  possibility 
of  remaining  here.  We  have  our  traditions, 
of  course,  but  we  are  practically  compelled 
to  live  upon  them,  and  it  seems  to  me  that 
a  distant  world  should  hear  not  only  of  our 
declining  past  but  of  what  we  have  increas- 
ingly to  put  up  with.  I  would  not  have 
invited  Tryphena  to  occupy  a  chapter,  but 
as  she  has  walked  in  without  this  formality 
she  might  as  well  stay. 


The  Crow's-Nest       223 

Indeed  I  would  not  have  invited  her. 
She  is  the  kind  of  Tryphena  that  never 
comes  to  see  you  unless  you  are  ill.  I  am 
not  so  agreeable  when  I  am  ill  —  I  imagine 
few  people  are  —  and  I  prefer  visits,  at  such  a 
time,  only  from  people  who  are  fond  of  see- 
ing me  when  I  am  well.  Why  in  heaven's 
name,  when  you  are  feverish  or  aguish  or 
panting  for  breath,  you  should  be  expected 
to  accept  as  a  "  kindness "  a  visit  from  a 
person  who  never  thinks  of  you  until  you 
become  a  helpless  object  to  whet  her  right- 
eousness on,  who  comes  and  inflicts  a  per- 
sonality upon  you  to  which  the  most  robust 
health  only  enables  you  to  be  barely  polite, 
is  to  me  an  irritating  conundrum.  I  had 
taken  particular  pains  to  be  reported  to 
Tryphena  as  entirely  convalescent,  "  quite 
out  of  the  doctor's  hands  ;  "  I  did  not  want 
to  be  on  her  parish  books.  Why  should  I 
suffer  to  enable  her  to  do  her  duty  ?  Why 
should  she  have  things  put  down  to  her 
credit  at  my  expense  ?  This  does  not  seem 
to  me  reasonable  or  proper  and  I  am  averse 
to  it.     Yet  I  have  told  her,  such  is  my  hypoc- 


2  24       The  Crow's-Nest 

risy,  how  good  it  was  of  her  to  come,  and 
she  has  gone  away  better  pleased  with  her- 
self than  ever. 

Tryphena's  attitude  toward  the  social  body 
by  which  she  is  good  enough  to  allow  her- 
self to  be  surrounded  is  a  mingling  of  com- 
passion and  censure.  She  is  la  justiciere. 
She  will  judge  with  equity,  even  with  mercy, 
but  she  must  always  judge.  She  is  per- 
petually weighing,  measuring,  criticising, 
tolerating,  exercising  her  keen  sense  of  the 
shortcomings  of  man  in  general  and  woman 
in  particular.  She  will  bring  her  standards 
and  set  them  up  by  your  bedside.  Your 
scanty  stock  of  force  cannot  be  better  used 
than  in  contemplating  and  admiring  them, 
and  you  must  recognize  how  completely  she 
herself  attains  them ;  you  have  no  alterna- 
tive. If  one  will  for  ever  strike  human  bal- 
ances one  should  have  a  broad  fair  page  to 
do  it  on,  and  Tryphena's  is  already  over- 
written with  cramped  prejudices.  It  is  a 
triviality,  but  Tryphena's  gloves  always  wrin- 
kle at  the  thumbs. 

If  she  had  been  a  man  she  would  have 


The  Crow's-Nest       225 

been  a  certain  kind  of  clergyman,  and  if  she 
had  been  a  clergyman  his  legs  would  have 
gone  in  gaiters.  Indeed,  sooner  or  later  she 
would  probably  have  added  to  the  name  of 
Tryphenus  the  glories  of  an  episcopal  see.  She 
is  past  mistress  of  the  art  of  kindly  rebuke. 
But  I  do  not  wish  to  be  kindly  rebuked. 
In  that  respect  I  am  like  the  Roy-Regent, 
and  all  other  persons  whom  Providence  has 
enabled  to  do  without  this  attention.  She 
has  more  principles  than  any  one  person  is 
entitled  to,  and  she  is  always  putting  them 
into  action  before  you.  I  think  it  is  a  mis- 
take to  imagine  that  people  care  about  the 
noble  reasons  that  direct  one's  doings;  if  one's 
doings  themselves  provoke  interest  it  is  ex- 
ceptional luck.  I  wish  somebody  would  tell 
Tryphena  that  principles  ought  to  be  hidden 
as  deep  as  a  conviction  of  superiority  ;  and 
see  what  would  happen.  I  am  sure  we  were 
not  born  to  edify  one  another. 

The  deplorable  part  of  it  is  that  Tryphena 

leaves  one  inclined  to  follow  her  in  the  steep 

and  narrow  path  that  leads  to  self-esteem. 

I  find  myself  at  this  moment  not  only  in  a 

15 


2  26       The  Crow's-Nest 

bad  temper,  but  in  a  vein  of  criticism  which 
I  am  inclined  to  visit  upon  persons  whom  I 
am  usually  entirely  occupied  in  admiring. 
My  friend  the  Bengal  Lancer  has  just  ridden 
by,  with  his  hand  on  his  hip.  It  has  never 
struck  me  before  that  to  ride  with  a  hand  on 
the  hip  is  a  sign  of  irredeemable  vanity.  The 
Gunner  was  here  to  tea  yesterday  —  he  of  the 
Mountain  Battery  —  and  told  us  stories  of 
his  mules.  I  think  disparagingly  of  his  mules. 
That  a  mule  will  "  chum  up  to  "  a  pony  and 
kick  a  donkey,  seems  this  morning  an  im- 
becile statement  of  an  improbable  fact,  though 
I  admit  I  laughed  at  the  time,  it  was  so 
British.  The  unpaid  Attache  came  too. 
The  unpaid  Attache  gives  one  the  impres- 
sion of  never  allowing  himself  to  be  as 
charming  as  he  might  be.  What  foolish 
fear  can  justify  this  reticence  ?  Enthusiasm, 
we  all  know,  is  permitted  to  the  gods  and  to 
foreigners  only,  but  even  an  unpaid  Attache 
can  afford  a  whole  smile. 

The  worst  that  can  be  said  of  Delia  is 
that  numbers  of  people  whom  she  does  n't 
care  a  button  about  call  her  a  dear.     At  least 


The  Crow's-Nest       227 

that  is  the  worst  I  can  think  of.  As  to 
Thalia,  I  had  a  note  from  her  yesterday  in 
which  she  spelled  my  name  wrong.  This  after 
two  years  of  notes.  It  may  have  been  an 
accident ;  but  much  as  I  love  Thalia  I  am 
disposed  —  this  morning  —  to  think  that  there 
is  somewhere  in  her  a  defect  obscure,  ele- 
mentary, which  matches  this.  What  is  the 
worst  they  know  of  me  ?  I  have  not  the 
least  idea,  but  I  am  prepared  —  this  morning 
—  to  hope  it  is  something  rather  bad. 

The  fact  is  that  here  in  our  remote  and 
arbitrary  and  limited  conditions  we  are  rather 
like  a  colony  in  a  lighthouse ;  we  have 
nothing  but  ourselves  and  each  other,  and 
we  grow  overwrought,  over-sensitive  to  the 
personal  impression.  I  suppose  that  is  what 
has  produced,  has  at  least  aggravated,  cases 
like  Tryphena's.  It  is  a  thing  to  be  on 
one's  guard  against.  I  quite  see  that  if  my 
own  symptoms  increase  I  shall  shortly  arrive 
at  the  point  of  being  unable  to  endure  the 
sight  of  many  persons  superior  to  myself; 
which  is  illogical  and  ridiculous. 


Chapter   XIX 


I  WAS  congratulating  the  hydrangea 
this  morning  on  its  delightful  attitude 
toward  life.  This  is  no  virtue  of  the 
hydrangea's ;  it  is  a  thing  conferred, 
a  mere  capacity,  but  how  enviable !  All 
through  its  youth  and  proper  blossoming 
time,  which  is  the  rains,  it  has  the  pink-and- 
white  prettiness  that  belongs  to  that  period. 
When  it  is  over,  instead  of  acknowledging 
middle  age  by  any  form  of  frumpishness 
the  hydrangea  grows  delicately  green  again  ; 
it  retires  agreeably,  indistinguishably  into 
leaves,  a  most  artistic  pose.  That,  too, 
passes  in  these  sharp  days  when  the  sun  is 
only  gold  that  glitters,  and  the  hydrangea, 
taking  its  unerring  tone  from  the  season, 
turns  a  kind  of  purplish  rose,  and  still  never 
drops  a  petal,  never  turns  a  hair.  In  the  end 
the  hydrangea  will  be  able  to  say  with  truth 
that  it  has  not  died  without  having  lived. 


The  Crow's-Nest       229 

Sooner  or  later  I  might  perhaps  have  seen 
that  for  myself,  but  it  was  Cousin  Christina 
who  pointed  it  out  to  me.  It  is  one  of  the 
subtler  and  more  gratifying  forms  of  selfish- 
ness to  ask  persons  of  taste  to  help  you  to 
enjoy  your  garden;  and  at  no  one's  expense 
do  I  indulge  in  this  oftener  than  at  Cousin 
Christina's.  She  spends  more  time  with  me 
here  under  the  pencil-cedar  than  any  one  else 
does,  partly  because  I  think  she  likes  me  a 
little  and  the  garden  a  great  deal,  and  partly 
because  she  has  fallen,  recently,  upon  very 
idle  circumstances. 

We  always  thought,  she  and  I,  that  we 
should  more  or  less  take  to  one  another. 
Mutual  friends  told  us  so,  and  there  was 
evidence  to  support  the  statement.  We 
approved  what  they  carried  back  and  forth 
between  us  of  our  respective  habits  and 
opinions  ;  and  once  I  saw  a  scrap  of  her 
interesting  handwriting  conveying  a  view 
in  terms  very  net.  Constantly  we  were 
made  to  feel  that  upon  the  basis  of  human 
intercourse  —  the  delicate  terms  of  which 
who  can  quite  expose  ? — we  had  things  to 


230       The  Crow's-Nest 

give  each  other,  and  constantly  we  said  with 
intention,  "  Next  summer  I  must  really  man- 
age to  meet  her."  That  is  all  I  knew  of 
Cousin  Christina,  except  that  life  had  offered 
her,  somehow,  less  than  she  had  a  title  to, 
and  that  she  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in 
her  garden. 

And  then  — "  on  sait  trop  de  cela,  que 
les  heures  sont  comptees  a  I'homme  qui  doit 
mourir,  et  on  agit  comme  si  le  tresor  de  ces 
heures  etait  inepuisable,  I'occasion  indefini- 
ment  renouvable  et  nos  amis  eternels."  * 
Cousin  Christina  died  last  year,  and  we  had 
never  met. 

It  will  be  judged  how  much  I  value  her 
visits  now,  now  that  she  has  so  far  to  come, 
and  her  efforts  to  make  me  understand  ;  we 
who  remain  are  so  deaf.  There  were  many 
points  at  which  the  world  irritated  her  while 
she  was  conditioned  in  it ;  and  I  think  the 
remoteness  of  this  place  appeals  to  her  in 
her  freedom ;  she  is  pleased  in  its  great  lines 
and  vast  spaces  which  yet  hold  just  the 
touch    of    human    enterprise   and   affection 

1  "LaPia." 


The  Crow's-Nest       231 

which  she  too  thought  essential,  here  in  my 
garden.  She  seems,  at  all  events,  to  belong 
to  the  vague,  as  if  she  loved  it,  and  of  course 
I  can  never  lay  my  hand  on  her. 

She  is  devoted  to  the  garden,  constantly 
she  trails  about  it,  having  nothing  to  say  to 
me,  with  precisely  that  attitude  toward  a 
rose  and  that  hand  under  a  top-heavy  aster 
which  separates  the  true  lover  from  the  mere 
admirer.  Dahlias  swing  free  as  she  passes, 
and  leaves  that  keep  the  sun  off  the  convol- 
vuluses get  out  of  their  way.  It  is  not  the 
wind,  it  is  Cousin  Christina.  She  is  more 
intimate  with  the  flowers  than  I  ;  almost 
invariably,  when  I  show  her  anything  new 
in  bloom  she  informs  me  "  I  saw  that  yester- 
day." She  does  not  seem  to  think  it  a  lib- 
erty to  see  another  person's  flowers  before 
the  person  herself.      I  criticise  her  there. 

I  cannot  put  down  what  she  says  in  the 
form  of  dialogue,  because,  although  the  mean- 
ing is  plain,  it  seems  to  take  some  other. 
She  herself  is  amused  at  the  idea  of  confin- 
ing her  within  quotation  marks.  It  comes 
to  this  that  I   can  give  you  only  an  essence. 


232       The  Crow's-Nest 

an  extract,  of  what  she  conveys.  How 
blundering  and  explosive,  after  Cousin 
Christina's  way,  are  the  great  words  of 
other  people !  I  like  sleeping  in  the  attic 
because  the  sun  climbing  up  behind  the 
shoulder  of  Jakko,  comes  in  there  first. 
This  morning,  looking  up  through  the 
little  high  window  in  the  wall  I  saw  a 
hawk  sailing  with  broad  sunlight  on 
his  wings,  though  none  had  reached  the 
window  yet,  and  the  attic  was  still  grey  and 
waiting.  I  have  seen  it  all  day,  the  hawk 
up  there  with  his  wings  gleaming,  but  it  was 
Cousin  Christina  who  suggested  that  per- 
haps after  all  it  was  only  necessary  to  rise 
high  enough  to  meet  the  light.  A  more 
definite  showing,  it  appears,  was  what  she 
lacked  most  in  life.  Among  a  bewildering 
worldful  of  facts,  appearances  and  incidents, 
vague,  she  complains,  is  the  short  existence, 
and  untrustworthy  the  interests  which  are 
our  only  guides  to  spend  it  to  the  best 
account.  She  seems  grieved  now  to  dis- 
cover how  much  more  there  was  and  how 
much  better  worth  doing.     Upon  one  thing 


The  Crow's-Nest       233 

only  I  feel  that  she  congratulates  herself. 
Among  our  poor  chances  there  is  one  which 
is  supreme,  and  she  had  it.  Within  her 
radius  she  saw.  The  mirror  was  hers  which 
prints  the  lovely  suggestion  of  things,  and  I 
have  learned  from  her  and  from  the  garden 
that  there  is  no  finer  or  more  delicate  or 
more  charming  occupation  for  a  person  of 
leisure  than  to  sit  and  polish  her  mirror. 

She  did  not  live  as  long  as  I  wish  to  do, 
and  I  think  at  the'  time  she  would  have 
been  glad  to  stay.  Nevertheless,  she  looks 
with  no  great  encouragement  upon  the 
efforts  after  completer  health  which  I  hope 
I  have  not  too  continuously  referred  to  in 
these  chapters.  I  gather  from  her  that  if 
you  are  asked  to  an  entertainment,  you  do 
not  reproach  your  host  that  it  is  so  soon 
over,  nor  are  you  supposed  to  resent  other 
people  getting  more  extended  invitations. 
The  lights  and  the  music  please  you,  but 
at  the  end  you  never  hesitate  to  step  out- 
side again  into  the  dark.  Perhaps  we  are 
all  here  quite  as  long  as  we  are  wanted. 
Life  is  very  hospitable,  but  she  cannot  put 


2  34       The  Crow's-Nest 

on  every  card  "  i  to  70  years."  I  gather 
that  these  are  Cousin  Christina's  views ; 
and  I  reply  that  it  is  easy  to  be  wise  after 
the  event,  which  I  am  nevertheless  still 
inclined    to    postpone. 

On  days  when  life  is  a  pure  pleasure  she 
is  not  much  with  me,  but  on  days  when  it 
is  a  mere  duty  —  she  knew  many  of  those 
herself,  poor  dear  —  I  can  always  depend 
upon  her.  It  was  she  who  lifted  her  long- 
handled  glasses  and  looked  at  Thisbe,  who 
one  morning  came  and  stood  in  the  sun 
between  us,  and  quoted,  — 

**A  happy  soul  that  all  the  way 
To  heaven  hath  a  summer's  day," 

which  exactly  prints  Thisbe,  and  she  who 
described  Lutetia  as  soothing  but  uninterest- 
ing, like  a  patent  food  —  her  invalid's  fancies 
seem  to  cling  to  her.  Cousin  Christina  is  a 
little  difficult  to  please ;  she  dismissed  the 
fresh-coloured,  vigorous  Alexandra  very 
shortly  as  a  nice  thing  growing  in  a  garden, 
and  when  I  hinted  that  Alexandra  held 
views   of  her   own  she    admitted    that   the 


The  Crow's-Nest       235 

creature  had  a  strong  scent.  She  permits 
herself  these  vagaries,  these  Uberties  with 
my  acquaintances,  the  majority  of  whom 
she  finds,  I  fear,  a  trifle  limited.  And  she 
has  a  courage  of  expression  which  belongs,  I 
am  sure,  only  to  the  disembodied.  Nothing 
rouses  her  to  more  impatience  than  the  ex- 
pression "  quite  a  character."  Is  it  not 
deplorable  and  distressing,  she  demands, 
that  we  are  not  all  characters  ?  She  herself 
was  very  much  of  a  character,  one  could 
imagine  soft,  stupid,  little  women  saying  so, 
at  meetings  to  dress  dolls  for  zenanas,  and 
how  it  would  irritate  her  when  the  mild 
imputation  was  brought  home  to  her.  She 
is  delightful  to  take  one's  indignations  to ; 
she  underlines  every  word,  though  she  pre- 
tends a  tolerance  for  the  unintelligent  which 
I  am  sure  she  does  not  feel.  "  Consider," 
I  almost  heard  her  say,  "  if  we  clever  ones 
of  the  world  were  not  so  few,  how  miserable 
the  stupid  ones  would  be  !  Secure  in  their 
grunting  majority  they  let  us  smite  them 
and  turn  the  other  cheek,  but  if  they  had  to 
grunt  solitarily  !  "     She  sometimes   forgets, 


236       The  Crow's-Nest 

like  that,  that  she  is  gone,  is  not.  How 
sharp  must  have  been  the  individuality  that 
refuses  so  obstinately  to  blend  with  the  uni- 
versal current ! 

In  the  simple  mosaic  here,  put  together 
at  odd  times,  piece  by  piece  rubbed  up  as  it 
came  and  set  in  its  place,  many  of  the  frag- 
ments are  here.  I  know  this  because  they 
are  not  things  that  would  naturally  occur  to 
me,  whereas  they  correspond  exactly  with 
the  sentiments  I  know  she  used  to  hold.  I 
have  nevertheless  written  them  out  without 
scruple  because  she  seems  in  a  way  to  have 
given  them  to  me. 

My  possession  in  her  is  uncertain  after 
all,  hardly  greater,  I  suppose,  than  a  kind 
of  constructive  regret.  Yet  somehow  I 
imagine  it  is  more  tangible  than  hers  in  the 
asters  and  the  carnations.  Her  impressions 
were  always  strong  and  her  affections  always 
loyal;  but  divested,  denuded  as  she  is,  I 
fancy  it  must  be  only  the  memory  that 
flowers  are  beautiful  that  brings  her  here, 
poor  ghost. 


Chapter    XX 

IT  is  sharp  on  these  mountains  now, 
keen,  glorious  weather.  In  the  house 
Thisbe  cowers  over  a  fire  from  morning 
to  night.  I  call  it  abject ;  she  retorts 
that  no  English  winter  has  ever  produced  in 
her  so  much  goose-flesh,  and  that  she  came 
to  India  to  be  warm.  Even  I  must  bend  to 
acknowledge  the  virtues  of  a  hot-water  bot- 
tle, and  I  have  abandoned  the  pencil-cedar; 
the  deck  chair  now  chases  the  sun.  Every 
hour  we  shift  farther  and  farther  to  the 
west,  until  at  about  four  o'clock  he  dips  be- 
hind the  castle  of  the  Princess,  and  then  we 
grow  very  grey  and  melancholy  on  the  shelf. 
It  is,  after  all,  the  great  sun  of  India;  if  it 
falls  steadily  upon  your  feet  it  will  slowly 
warm  them  through  the  shivering  air ;  but 
nothing,  not  even  a  dahlia,  must  come  be- 
tween you  and  it.  Even  a  dahlia  makes  a 
difference.      The   glare  upon   this   page  is 


238       The  Crow's-Nest 

particularly  unpleasant,  but  I  have  perma- 
nently closed  my  parasol ;  the  double  sensa- 
tion of  icy  fingers  and  toasting  feet  was 
worse.  It  is  more  than  I  bargained  for,  a 
week,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  beyond  my  con- 
tract time ;  and  only  the  fear  of  taking  cold 
there  keeps  me  from  going  into  the  house. 

Whatever  forebodings  the  garden  feels  it 
puts  a  brave  front  upon  the  matter.  It  is 
smart  with  zinnias  now ;  in  ranks  they 
stand,  like  soldiers,  always  at  attention.  I 
have  no  patience  with  people  who  are  too 
aesthetic  for  zinnias,  who  complain  of  their 
stiffness  and  their  commonness  and  what 
not.  I  think  the  zinnia  a  particularly  de- 
lightful creature,  full  of  courage  and  charac- 
ter and  cheerful  confidence,  and  here  where 
we  have  to  make  such  a  fight  for  a  bit  of 
colour  against  the  void  it  is  invaluable.  It 
may  not  be  exactly  a  lovable  flower,  but 
what  of  that?  Many  of  us  must  be  content 
to  be  estimable.  There  is  even  joy  in  a 
zinnia.  From  where  I  sit  I  look  through  a 
fringe  of  them  along  the  paling  where  they 
almost  glitter  in  the  sun.     Beyond  are  a  few 


The  Crow's-Nest       239 


dark  deodar  tops  and  an  oak  from  which  the 
last  yellow  leaves  are  fluttering,  fluttering, 
and  behind  the  tracery  of  this  the  blue  sky 
bending  to  the  still  sharp  snowy  ranges.  If 
you  shut  your  eyes  and  succeed  in  seeing 
that,  you  may  almost  forget  that  I  am  in 
India  and  you  somewhere  else;  we  are  both, 
really,  very  near  Thibet  and  not  far,  I 
imagine,  from   heaven. 

Nor  would  anybody,  I  am  sure,  ever 
think  of  India  and  chrysanthemums  to- 
gether. Yet  the  shelf  is  glorious  with 
chrysanthemums,  purple  and  bronze  and 
gold  and  white.  My  gardening  now  takes 
the  form  of  kind  attentions  to  the  chrys- 
anthemums. Atma  will  tie  them  up  with 
what  I  can  only  call  swaddling  strings,  round 
their  necks  or  their  waists  or  anywhere, 
without  the  slightest  regard  for  their  com- 
fort. Whereas  if  there  is  one  thing  a 
chrysanthemum  pleads  for,  it  is  freedom  to 
exercise  its  own  eccentric  discretion  with 
regard  to  pose.  There  is  no  refreshment 
to  exile  like  the  cold  sharp  fragrance  of 
chrysanthemums,  especially  white  ones.     It 


240       The  Crow's-Nest 

brings  back,  straight  back,  the  glistening 
pavement  of  Kensington  High  Street  on  a 
wet  November  night  and  the  dear  dense 
smell  of  London  and  a  sense  of  the  delight 
that  can  be  bought  for  sixpence  there. 
Delight  should  be  cheap  but  not  too  cheap. 
I  am  thankful  sometimes  for  the  limitations 
of  our  shelf  and  the  efforts  we  must  make  to 
keep  it  pretty,  and  the  fact  that  we  have  to 
consider  whether  leaf-mould  is  not  rather 
dear  at  fourpence  a  basket.  It  must  be 
difficult  to  keep  in  relation  with  a  whole 
mountain-side,  which  is  the  estate  of  some 
people,  or  with  six  thousand  rupees  a  month, 
which  is  the  pay  of  a  Member  of  Council. 
I  should  lease  most  of  the  mountain-side,  I 
think,  and  put  the  rupees  in  bags  and  lock 
them  up  in  a  vault,  just  anyhow,  as  the  rajahs 
do.  To  be  aware  that  you  had  a  vault  full 
of  rupees  in  bags  would  remove  every  care 
from  life,  but  not  to  be  obliged  to  know 
exactly  how  many  bags  there  were  would  fill 
it  with  peace  and  ecstasy.  There  is  solid 
comfort  in  a  bag  of  rupees  —  I  have  pos- 
sessed, at  times,  a  little  one  —  but  in  a  vast 


The  Crow's-Nest       241 

Income  which  you  never  see  there  must  be 
a  vague  dissatisfaction,  as  well  as  bank- 
books and  separate  accounts,  and  cheques 
and  other  worries  which  you  must  infallibly 
remember  to  date.  The  East  teaches  us 
much  of  simplicity  and  comfort  in  the  per- 
sons of  its  princes.  It  has  taught  me  the 
real  magnificence  of  rupees  in  a  bag. 

Atma  and  I  have  had  a  morning  of  great 
anticipations.  It  is  time  now  to  look  for- 
ward, time  to  provision  the  garden  against 
the  greedy  spring,  and  to  make  plans.  In 
all  my  plans  the  paling  figures  largely;  it 
is  a  hand-rail  between  us  and  eternity,  natu- 
rally things  look  well  against  it.  Next  year 
we  are  going  to  have  hollyhocks,  single 
and  double,  pink  and  rose  and  white,  in  a 
rampart  all  along  the  paling  as  it  follows 
the  sweep  of  the  shelf,  and  spraying  thickly 
out  from  these  the  biggest  and  whitest  mar- 
guerites that  will  consent  to  come  up,  and 
along  the  border  the  broad  blue  ribbon  of 
forget-me-nots.  Farther  on  where  the 
shelf  widens  in  front  of  the  house  and  the 
deodars  rise  thick  before  it,  a  creamy  Dev- 
16 


242        The  Crow's-Nest 

oniensis  is  already  in  possession  of  the  pal- 
ing, and  here  my  goldenrod  is  to  stand 
fretted  against  the  firs,  and  dwarf  sunflow- 
ers shall  fraternize  with  it ;  and  about  its 
skirts  shall  grow  myriads  of  coreopsis  single 
and  double,  and  masses  of  puce-coloured 
Michaelmas  daisies,  and  at  their  feet  the 
grateful  simple-minded  purple  petunia  in 
the  largest  families,  as  thick  as  ever  she 
likes.  I  did  not  mention  it  before,  because 
one  does  hate  to  be  always  complaining, 
but  Tiglath-Pileser  has  invaded  the  garden 
with  some  Japanese  plums  ;  straight  up  they 
stick  in  the  widest  part  of  the  paling  bor- 
der, and  discouragingly  healthy  they  look. 
Round  two  of  these  I  have  planted  portu- 
laca  and  ringed  it  with  lobelia,  and  round 
the  other  two  lobelia,  and  ringed  it  with 
little  pink  lilies.  The  roses  in  the  bed 
opposite  the  dining-room  window  have 
grown  rather  leggy  with  age,  and  next  year 
they  are  to  rise  out  of  a  thick  and,  as  I  see 
it,  low  forest  of  pink  and  white  candytuft, 
and  the  bed  is  to  be  deeply  framed  in  pan- 
sies.     We   are   to    have   foxgloves   on   the 


The  Crow's-Nest       243 

khud  rank  above  rank,  and  wallflowers  on 
its  more  accessible  projections,  and  in  the 
rains  the  gayest  crowd  of  dahlias  of  the 
ballet,  the  single  degenerates,  are  to  gather 
there.  Atma  is  to  get  them  where  he  likes 
and  I  am  to  ask  no  questions.  I  am  home- 
sick for  a  certain  very  sweet,  very  yellow 
rather  small  and  not  very  double  brier  rose 
that  belongs  to  other  years  when  it  was 
much  presented  to  "  the  teacher,"  also  for  a 
modest  little  fringed  pink  with  a  dark  line  on 
its  petals  which  made  the  kind  of  posy  one 
oflfered  to  one's  grandmother.  But  I  fear 
the  other  years  are  a  country  one  cannot 
rediscover  in  every  part ;  though  I  have 
asked  diligently  of  persons  who  also  inhabited 
them  I  have  not  yet  found  my  gentle  pink 
or  my  little  yellow  rose.  Then  a  bed  of  irises 
is  to  be  made  just  over  the  kitchen  roof,  to 
take  the  eye  off  it,  and  the  garden  lilies, 
which  are  mostly  madonnas,  are  to  fore- 
gather in  one  place  instead  of  being  scattered 
about  as  they  are  now  among  the  rose- 
bushes. Thisbe  thinks  nothing  could  be 
lovelier  than  a  lily  and  a  rose,  but  I  cannot 


2  4-4       The  Crow's-Nest 

agree  with  her.  The  combination  savours 
of  trop  de  luxe,  it  recalls  an  early  Victorian 
lacquered  tea-tray.  If  she  likes  to  mix  her 
garden-parties  like  that  she  can,  but  my  lilies 
must  express  themselves  with  no  other  flower 
to  interfere  with  them.  A  lily  has  so  little 
to  say  to  the  world ;  it  must  have  an  atmos- 
phere of  the  completest  reticence  if  it  is  to 
speak  at  all.  The  roses  will  be  reinforced 
by  twenty-five  other  sorts  from  the  Govern- 
ment Gardens  at  Saharanpore ;  and  there 
are  to  be  several  new  admittances  to  the 
home  for  decayed  gentlewomen.  The  border 
nearest  the  upper  khud  has  been  arranged  to 
take  everything  we  don't  want  in  other  places 
—  the  phloxes,  the  antirrhinums,  the  lupins 
and  carnations  and  gaillardias  and  surpluses 
of  all  sorts  which  it  would  be  a  sin  to  throw 
away.  It  will  be  a  kind  of  garden-attic,  but 
the  medley  should  be  bright.  Also,  to  do 
him  justice,  Tiglath-Pileser  has  given  me  a 
wild-rose  hedge  round  our  whole  property, 
along  both  roads  and  up  and  down  the 
khuds.  Thick  and  fragrant  it  will  be  in 
May   and    starred   with    creamy    blossoms. 


The  Crow's-Nest       245 

He  said  he  owed  me  something  on  account 
of  the  grafts,  and  I  could  not  conscientiously 
dispute  the  matter.  So  that  will  be  my  gar- 
den, I  hope,  of  next  year.  It  will  hold  no 
brilliant  effects ;  we  only  want  to  be  gay  and 
merry  on  the  shelf  and  to  keep  certain  rela- 
tions intact ;  we  have  no  room  to  be  ambi- 
tious. I  know  now  at  least  where  my  garden 
begins  and  where  it  leaves  off,  and  a  little 
more.  Next  year  I  hope  to  pretend  to  that 
intimate  knowledge  which  comes  of  having 
gone  over  every  foot  of  it,  without  which  no 
one  should  say  anything,  or  even  write  any- 
thing probably.  However,  Elizabeth  ^  did, 
and  everybody  liked  it.  Elizabeth  began 
as  a  complete  amateur  ;  and  her  very  amateur- 
ity  disarmed  criticism.  She  had  nothing 
but  taste  and  affection,  and  her  struggles  to 
garden  upon  this  capital  have  often  sympa- 
thetically occurred  to  me  during  the  past 
summer.  Frequently  I  have  had  occasion 
to  say  to  her,  speaking  quite  anonymously, 
"  What  would  you  think  of  that,  Elizabeth, 
supposing  you  lived  on  a  shelf? "  and  often 

*  "  Elizabeth  and  Her  German  Garden." 


246       The  CrowVNest 

in  the  depression  of  wondering  whether  it 
was  quite  fair  to  try  to  follow  her  charming 
fashion,  I  have  explained  that  I  really  have 
to  write  about  my  garden ;  I  was  turned  out 
in  it,  I  had  no  more  choice  than  Nebuchad- 
nezzar ;  and  that  I  sincerely  hope  I  have 
not  plagiarized  her  plants.  And  I  assured 
her  it  is  a  thing  I  would  never  do,  that  those 
hereinbefore  mentioned  grew  for  me,  every 
one,  from  seed  or  bulb  —  that  I  would  not 
ever  plagiarize  from  Mr.  Johnson,  whose 
Japanese  lilies  were  glorious  to  behold  this 
year  and  very  moderate. 

Notwithstanding  these  meek  statements  I 
feel,  here  at  the  end  of  the  book  and  the 
end  of  the  summer,  highly  experienced  and 
knowledgeable  about  gardens.  I  long  to 
pour  out  accumulated  facts,  and  only  a 
doubt  of  the  relative  value  of  advice  pro- 
duced at  an  altitude  of  seven  thousand  feet 
in  the  middle  of  Asia  prevents  my  doing  so. 
In  more  serious  moments  I  hardly  dare  hope 
that  I  have  not  already  talked  too  much 
about  my  garden  and  other  things,  but  no- 
body should  be  severe  upon  this  who  has 


The  Crow's-Nest       247 

not  discovered  the  entertainment  to  be  got 
out  of  a  perfectly  silent  visiting  public.  I 
should  confess  that  I  have  enjoyed  it  enor- 
mously ;  it  would  be  becoming  in  me  to 
thank  that  mute  impersonal  body  for  a  de- 
lightful summer.  It  is  such  an  original 
pleasure  to  go  on  saying  exactly  what  you 
like  and  briefly  imagine  replies,  as  well  as 
a  valuable  aid,  I  am  sure,  to  convalescence. 
To  have  increased  the  sum  of  the  world's 
happiness  by  one's  own  is  perhaps  no  great 
accomplishment,  yet  is  it  so  easy .?  Neither 
can  it  be  called  especially  virtuous  to  feel  a 
little  better,  but  what  moral  satisfaction  is 
there  to  compare  with  it  ? 

The  summer  and  the  book  are  done. 
The  procession  of  the  Days  has  gone  by,  all 
but  a  straggler  or  two  carrying  a  tattered 
flag ;  it  took  seven  months  to  pass  a  given 
point.  There  is  a  rustling  among  the  roses 
when  the  wind  comes  this  way,  but  nearly 
always  the  blue  void  holds  a  golden  silence. 
Belated  butterflies  bask  on  the  warm  gravel 
with  wings  expanded  and  closed  down. 
Wooing  is  dangerous  now ;  shadows  over- 


248       The  Crow's-Nest 

take  you,  and  a  shadow  kills.  The  zinnias 
are  all  old  soldiers,  the  Snows  have  come 
nearer  in  the  night.  Some  morning  soon 
they  will  have  crept  over  the  shelf,  but  only 
Atma  will  see  that.  The  rest  of  the  family 
will  be  occupying  a  spot  under  the  warm 
dust  haze  down  below,  so  far  down  as  to  be 
practically  below  sea-level.  The  vicissitudes 
of  some  lives  I 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAl.  UBRAflY  • 


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